From Paradise
by Zeech
Summary: Sequel to Eyes of the Jackal. Half a year after his escape, Raoul hunts the Phantom down, and presents him with an offer that will bring Erik - and his work - back into the world. The end result is a tour around the globe, trailing a myriad of conflict.
1. 1

**Author's Note:** The not-so-long-awaited sequel. This one's even longer, and probably more depressing. Hope it meets everyone's expectations!

* * *

**Title: From Paradise  
Author: **Zeech  
**Pairing: **Erik/Raoul  
**Phantom Version:** a combination of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical/film, more elements of Susan Kay's Phantom, and last but most certainly not least, all characters belong to Gaston Leroux.  
**Rating:** R, for some dark material, and sexuality.

* * *

The guests have finally departed.

For months Raoul has been surrounded by his family, his distant relatives, friends he never knew he had, all urging him to recover, holding his hands and inch by inch attempting to guide him back into the step of living everyday. It is easier said than done, but half a year has passed since he first crawled up from the sewers of Paris' underground, and in these long months he has started to emerge from the shell built around his person. Perhaps it is the fact that his parents and brother have decided he is well enough to be on his own now. Time itself may be the only element to thank for his recovery, but in any case, Raoul has survived.

What the blind cannot see is that Raoul is alive, but he is not living. He spends endless hours in bed, beneath thick blankets with his arms up above his head, staring blankly out a gray window as winter prepares to settle on Paris once more. Beneath the sheets is a body almost entirely replenished with healthy muscle, and color has returned to his skin. He is never alone anymore, no matter how he wishes he was, and when he is alone he cannot stand the silence. Raoul dwells between the best and worst of two worlds, and he cannot find peace.

He has not turned to drink or substances for relief, though it might be better if he does, as his thoughts are no more healthy than downing glasses of poison, one right after the other. He does not think so much as he lingers in memories, distant at times, even more vague at others, and Raoul does not know where to draw the line. He only knows that the moment he chose to take the long stairway into the blackest of Hells he had changed his entire composition as a human being, and would never realign himself to the young man he used to be.

She visits him now and again, to cry for him. She knows, and understands why he cannot bring himself back to her or the world, why he spends long hours with the curtains drawn and only a glow of candle light to keep him out of the darkness. Remorse is the reflection he sees in her eyes when he can make himself look at her, dreadful remorse and regret.

Raoul has not had the courage to ask her why she left him there to die, and when he does she can only shake her head and blot at large, glistening tears that seem to consume the entirety of her thin white face. He remembers her being so much more beautiful than this, a sobbing wreck. He remembers loving her, and that is why he still aches.

"I searched for you," Christine whispers, dryly. "I did. Weeks passed, everyone gave up, I still sat before that mirror and I begged him to let you go. I told him that I would give him anything to just hear your voice again, to hear you were safe, and alive. He told me you were dead."

Raoul knows she spoke to him, this is no new information. He knows that in the beginning Erik only ever tormented her for his release. What he did not know was that Erik eventually stopped coming to her all together. Erik's heart had turned into ashes, and he stopped wanting her. Not even her tears, blood, body were enough for Erik to bestow mercy on the Vicomte. Raoul inhales, deeply, and he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. The sitting room is silent and empty, save for the chorus girl and her patron.

Christine's fingers trail over the dry calluses of his knuckles, and Raoul realizes for perhaps the first time how his hands have lost their softness. How delicate they once were, fine, and now they are worn, and sanded over with suffering. It is one of his only visible remaining scars; the only one Christine can truly see.

"Is he dead?" she asks him. "Does he live?"

Raoul glances at her, blankly. He does not know if the Angel in Hell died that day, if he lived. He knows nothing, and when he blinks, and focus returns to his gaze, he sees how Christine stares at him. She studies him. Perhaps she is searching as well, for answers. Secrets he cannot keep, wounds that refuse to heal.


	2. 2

**2**

This day was meant to be his wedding day. A secret engagement, a peaceful, secluded wedding on the hill, but there are no witnesses here. The sky is gray and the sun refuses to show its face, and snow will not fall. There will be no wedding, and Christine knows it just as well as he. They did not come here to marry, but to speak. She is not only a cold maid awaiting to become a bride, a statue in a draping white dress. Christine is still his childhood friend. There is love there, even if Raoul cannot find it.

He can never speak to her of what he has endured. Words will not form themselves, and he has never had control over words.

The engagement celebration is taking place at his home as they stand, but the bride and groom to be knew there would be nothing to celebrate. He took her hand, gently, and they departed the scene unnoticed, slipping through back doors and into the thick fog of morning. Now they only stand, side by side, in company.

"How did you stay alive?" she finally whispers. "Where did you find the courage to keep on living?"

"Courage has nothing to do with it," Raoul murmurs. "I was afraid. I tried to escape, the only way I could, but I was afraid to." Her arms come around him, from behind, and Raoul reaches up to stroke her delicate forearm, offering what little comfort he is still capable of. He closes his eyes, hard, and shame rises like bile in his throat. Raoul steps away from Christine. "I hated you," he confesses, and the words fall awkwardly like vomit at his feet. Christine's expression does not change. Perhaps she has known all along. Raoul quails inside his coat, and tightens it around himself even more. The wind seems to pick up. "Everyday I lost hope in you, I began to hate you more and more."

"You hate me now," she says, and Raoul shakes his head, quickly.

"No," he cannot hate her. "Never, I..." Raoul runs both hands through his hair, and does not take them from his face as he searches for words. "I've changed, Christine, into something – something so unforgivable. If we were to marry now, your husband would be nothing. Dead on the inside, I—" He looks at her, desperate for understanding. Christine approaches him, slowly, and he forbids himself to cry. Before her, he cannot show weakness. It is not his part to play as it used to be. She takes his cold face in her hands, and Raoul has nothing to say but what he has already told her. He lowers his eyes, and feels tears collect and slide to the bottoms of his lids, blurring the sight of his shoes on the dead grass. "I have changed Christine. It is all I can say to describe what I've become."

"Raoul." Nothing after, a statement, something to tell him to stop being ridiculous. He shakes her off.

"You cannot know, Christine," he snaps, covering his eyes with a gloved hand. "If you ever did, you would..." his voice lowers. Shame. "The way you would look at me would be unbearable."

Christine does know. Somehow, she knows, and the way her eyes fall onto his tells Raoul as much. It is a gentle expression, accepting. Christine smiles, softly, and she presses the back of her hand into her cheek. He can still see the smile. "You've fallen out of love with me."

Raoul shakes his head, and sniffs hard, hardly aware of the fact that he is actually nodding. "Too much has changed," he croaks. "Look at me. Look at me, Christine." She looks at him. Tears, pink eyes and nose from the cold, red veins in blue eyes. Trembling lips. Hair disheveled from the winds invasion. "Have you ever remembered me this way?"

Christine kisses him. It is not a lover's kiss, those days for the both of them are far over, but her lips meet his and bring on only comfort. She stands on the tips of her toes, and kisses him, softly, again and again. Fingers like silk push the remnants of tears from his pale face.

"Are you all right?" she asks him, and Raoul cannot answer. Christine takes his face in her hands and keeps his eyes on hers, gently shaking him. "Raoul, are you all right?"

"I don't know," he mutters, breathless.

"You will be," she tells him, and kisses him again. "I believe you will be, in time. I love you, I do. But I accepted your death," Christine strokes his cheekbone with her thumb. "And you accepted my leaving you there. It is not love we have fallen out of, it's a new part of our lives we have fallen into."

A kiss, and she leaves him again, but without bitterness or contempt. There are two sides to this now, and he sees them both very clearly, as he turns back to the hill to overlook the city. Raoul breathes in, hard, through his nose. Christine is no longer the source of his suffering. He is weary of Paris.


	3. 3

**3**

The Vicomte will not go outside the confines of his walls unless he is summoned. They say it is because of his nerves, that he has still a long road ahead to his recovery, that he will be in fear of his life until the day he dies. Of course Raoul has heard the rumors. They always get back to him eventually, and Raoul only remembers that it is always easier to be alone. He spends hours alone, in his room, with the mirrors unveiled and splayed out to give him back an image of himself. He needs constant reminding of his condition, and if it is improving.

He has healed, of course, but unlike his family and friends he does not see a smartly dressed, healthy human being. Raoul looks at himself and he sees a hollow figure, not a handsome young man in a black dress coat, high white collar and gold trimmings - he sees a skinny, waifish boy, with frightened pale eyes and a drawn face. Somewhere in this blanched image is a man, a stronger man, one who is not afraid, but Raoul cannot find him.

The mirrors close in and he steps into them, touching the glass as it reflects the even tones of his face. No bruises, no sunken appearance, no sorrow etched into the corners of desperate eyes. Raoul closes them, tries to give them a rest, and breathes in through his nose.

"You are not broken," he whispers, barely audible even to himself. He talks to himself these days, as there is none in the world who would stay to listen if they heard even half the story. "Make it through this day." Raoul says the same every morning he comes into the world, and every time he leaves his home. This time it is to make an appearance at the Opera Populaire, for the anniversary production of Hannibal. It is to be in the memory of the now infamous disaster, and will be the first production since, in honor of his return.

A kind gesture from his managers, but Raoul dreads it. He will attend, nonetheless, and put on a smile. He must live again.

Stepping into the familiarity of the wide double-doors sends a rush over him, and Raoul balks visibly before them, even as the cast and crew send up cheers in his path. The air is too thick, the sounds too loud, the hall is too narrow. He feels his legs begin to shake, and resists every urge to take a step back. It is not the time to coward out, not now, in front of the entire company. They all expect him to. They all expect weakness, he can't give them that.

Raoul gathers himself, something of the man he used to be, and strides through with an unconvincing smile on his face. None seem to notice how forced it is, and as he passes dozens of hands reach out to touch his shoulders, shake his hands, pat him on the back - but it is Madame Giry who takes his arm. She is dressed in black, as always, eyes painted up with her lashes and ageless face set in beauty. She is silent, and solemn, and her hands on him are tight. Almost protective. Perhaps she regrets leading him down there that fateful evening, but Raoul has never held her responsible.

"There is much to be said," For perhaps the first time since his return she speaks to him, softly. They come to Box Five, and Madame Giry turns to face him before the elaborate red drapes. She touches his cheek, a vaguely maternal gesture. It is fleeting, and she pulls back to look him over. Maybe she is the only one to see what he sees, and that is the reflection of pity he sees on her face. "But I will leave it to silence, if you will only know how-" Madame Giry is lost for words. She hesitates, and lowers her eyes briefly, folding delicate hands at her waist. "Know how brave a man you truly are, Vicomte. Whatever you did to escape…" Her smile fades. She knows, perhaps. "It took courage unimaginable."

Raoul looks away. He can feel color creeping into his face. "Please, Madame."

"Tonight is for you," she murmurs. Madame Giry leaves him to stand behind the crimson drapes, and passes into the shadows. Raoul faces the box and knows he cannot enter it. However brave Madame Giry tells him he his he cannot believe her. He inhales, deeply, and turns away from the box, running thin fingers through freshly trimmed honey hair. He cannot do such a thing without remembering, dark moments in even darker sanctity. Pain, never without comfort. His body aches, old bruises faded to ghosts still quail at the phantom grip. His bravery had nothing to do with his escape.

Raoul enters Box Five, but he is hollow, of fear and joy.


	4. 4

**4**

The music vibrates beneath him, around him, and Raoul is hardly paying attention to what is going on onstage. He lays back with his head on the drape and his eyes closed, the lamplight soft enough not to disturb the darkness behind his eyes. If anyone sees him resting here it is unlikely they will take offense, or speak anything of it. He has excuses now, and is almost expected to do things as this, sleep through operas, ignore his company. Raoul does not care. He does not want to open his eyes.

Under the layers of thick, soft clothing he feels the hair on his arms rise, and heat briefly washes over the curve of his cheekbone and past his temple; the sensation of another presence in the room, another body. Raoul does not open his eyes.

"I know you're here," he whispers, dry and so shallow it lingers at the very bottoms of his lungs and will go no further. He will choke on his own words if they are any lower. "You won't leave me alone." His brows draw in, tighter. "Leave me alone."

"The new chandelier," a voice to his right, so close now. "Is it to your liking?" Raoul draws in a sharp breath, nostrils twitching, and he opens his eyes very slowly without looking to his right. Vaguely there is the outline of another body. The blurred shape of a head tilts, thoughtfully. "How alone you must be," it taunts. "You always return to the places you so fear, Vicomte?"

For the first time tonight Raoul attempts to focus on the ballet, and refuses to turn his head. He can see little Meg Giry down there, all twirls and pale yellow curls. "You do not frighten me."

"And why not?"

"Because," Raoul snaps. "You're not real." He remembers waking to blood. He can still smell it thickly in the stale air, can still feel it stick and sting his naked body, and Raoul can still feel the horror stricken upon his features as he held his scarlet streaked hands before his face. He colors, and Erik laughs, soft and dangerous.

"Perhaps," he murmurs. "Perhaps I am only the darkness. Do you not still fear the darkness?"

Raoul bites down on the inside of his cheek to hold composure, and twists around stiffly to regard his tormentor. The image does not disappear or waver as he hopes it will. There is still the white mask, the slicked black hair. A face distorted in shadow. It cannot be real, Erik's face cannot be real, but anger is pulled out of him nonetheless. He narrows his eyes, and sets his gaze straight on again, back to the ballet. "And you?" he says, hotly. Raoul can be cruel as well. "Where have you been? Did you find liberation?" he glances over at Erik, to a face void of expression. "In London? Venice? Florence?"

A slow smile. "But I am not real."

"No," Raoul replies, sharply, and leans forward in his seat to put all focus on the ballet. He does not grace Erik with a look. "You're not."

The smile dies from Erik's voice. "I left this place," he says. "I did not go far."

"Where did you go."

"I watched over you," Erik murmurs, softly, and from the corner of his eye Raoul can see the dark head dip. "I watched over you every night. Even as I lay dying. I watched you dream. I watched your nightmares. I watched you grow strong."

"You never – " Raoul whips his head around, but there is no one there, not even darkness, only the hanging red drapes against the wall. Raoul wonders if perhaps he dreamed it. He lies, to himself.


	5. 5

**5**

Raoul's dreams have not been troubling this past week, but that does not mean that he can stop thinking of it. Every element of his day leads him back to those dark tunnels, or just sitting in the silence of Box Five with a presence that does not even exist. It means something. If nothing else, it means that he is utterly and completely alone, and has no other person in the world to speak to about what he feels. Who would believe him, or look upon him without shame? Christine would believe, Madame Giry would believe, but not even they could accept what he did in his darkest moments.

He surrendered, entirely. He developed an attachment to Erik out of loneliness and desperation, and he did not fight it in the end. Raoul allowed Erik to become his world, let Erik have him and hurt him, and there were actually moments where Raoul would have given everything he had above the ground just to stay with Erik. It had escalated into something so binding, so inescapable. It left him empty. He is entirely alone, and utterly unsatisfied with every aspect of life.

Raoul walks these days, long and late into the night. He keeps a stick at his side, his head up and his back straight, but he still feels weak. Every bone seems to sink in his skin when he passes the dark shape of the Opera Populaire, silent and cold in the starlight. It used to hold such mystery, such excitement. There is only fear in those doors, and as he steps back he realizes he is standing over a familiar grate. It is even blacker in that tunnel, and the distant sound of water gently runs by, echoing up into the night.

Raoul glances around him, and the streets are empty. It is cold out tonight, and the steam that floats up from between the heavy metal bars mingles with the heat from Raoul's breath. He nudges it, once, with the toe of his boot, and slowly lowers to kneel before the entrance to the sewers. It is dank, and stale down there, but Raoul knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he could find his way back. It is black in those tunnels, and one could walk for hours, taking wrong turns and getting lost in wide chambers, but he knows the way. He knows the way because this is the simplest entrance to Erik's lair - there is only one direction to follow, straight.

Raoul finds himself gripping the cold bars, and he pulls upward with all his strength. They groan, and squeak, and finally the grate lifts free, leaving only the gaping hole to a bottom he cannot even see. There is only a very subtle shine of moonlight on the water, and he can see little ripples. He can reach out and touch the start of the ladder - it is slicked with grease and gutter slime, and he pulls his hand back with a scowl. The smell is rank with stale water and rot. For some reason the smell does not register in his memory. It is new.

Raoul's insides quail. The passageway reeks of death.

Even as I lay dying.

Perhaps there is truth in the creations he invents within his thoughts. Perhaps Erik truly is dead. Raoul cannot remember how badly he was bleeding that night, or if he remembers seeing the older man collapse. He only remembers the howls, of sorrow, of agony, of desperation, and running as far away from them as he could.

Raoul sets the grate back where it belongs. He stands, and keeps his eyes down on it, keening into the darkness for any sign of light. He will return here, with light of his own.


	6. 6

**6**

Raoul stands in his dining hall alongside the table, with several lanterns spread out before him. He is filling them each with oil and replacing the wicks. It is an odd thing for any gentleman to be doing at such an hour, in his robe and slippers, but the servants never question their master's hobbies anymore. He has requested they take the next few days off, to leave him an empty house. He tells them it is for his own sanity, that he needs time to himself, and they believe it.

"He will starve to death," Jacqueline, the last of the maids to leave with Madame Frou, takes her coat and shakes her head at the very end of the hall. The Vicomte does not hear a word she says, and she rolls her eyes. "I don't care how long you look, you will never find a man who can cook for himself. Not even a Vicomte."

"Quiet girl, go wait outside," Madame Frou orders her, and Jacqueline scurries out the front door without another sound. The housekeeper gathers her coat beneath her arm, and wanders into the dining room before she leaves. Raoul is seated, twisting a knife into one of the rusty screws holding the lantern together, and when he hears her approach he glances up, brows raised. "Monsieur, are you certain you will be all right on your own?"

"Of course," he assures her. "Thank you. Goodnight, Madame."

"Goodnight, Monsieur," Madame Frou hesitates before she leaves, casting a glance over the lanterns that have collected before him, and rather than staying to figure it out she decides it is not her business, and leaves for the night. Perhaps he does need time to himself. He is not pale anymore, but he never ceases to look exhausted.

Raoul waits until the door closes, and locks. Nothing in the house moves. It is finally completely silent, and he adores the silence. What once drove him mad now is the only thing to bring him comfort, and he sits in the quiet for the next hour, assembling the old lanterns. Raoul does not mean to bring all three with him to the passage, but the mundane task helps to calm his nerves. His hands are shaking, and his knee jiggers up and down beneath the table.

He waits until the big clock in the hall strikes midnight, and at that signal he comes to his feet, somewhat reluctantly, and replaces his slippers with boots, and his robe with a warm overcoat. It is cold out tonight, and will only continue to get colder as the weeks progress. He is grateful it has not snowed yet.

Raoul picks up the smallest of the lamps and tucks it into the warmth of his coat, and when he leaves the house his walking stick is deserted at the door. A blast of cold air is his welcome, and Raoul shakes his head, feeling whatever sleep might have been beginning to settle on him immediately disappear. He is anxious, for the entirety of the walk to the Opera Populaire, and several times almost decides to turn back. It is foolish and ridiculous to be out at this hour, going back under –

"You're stronger now," he tells himself, and clears his throat, ignoring the cold as it stings at his eyes and dries his lips. Raoul has to believe that he is stronger, because it is the only thing that keeps him from turning and going back home. He goes on walking because he knows something has to change if he is to go on living, if he is to ever truly live again he needs to know what became of Erik. He knows that he had just as much hold over Erik as Erik had over him, and even if such madness has departed, he still remembers what it was. He can still keep control.

Yet, as he once again approaches the gaping hole in the earth, protected by thick rusting bars and heavy latches, his courage begins to shrink away. Raoul does not even know if he wants this anymore, and his body moves without his mind, bringing the lantern to rest on the street. The match ignites against the rust of the lantern, and he lights it carefully, setting it aside to open the grate. It feels heavier than it did two nights ago, and he clenches his teeth, lifting it with effort until he may gently set it parallel to the opening. Raoul gathers the lantern in one hand, and he holds it over the tunnel.

An outline of the ladder is clear now, the shallow puddles beneath it, and the shadows of what he cannot see are splayed before him. Raoul holds his breath, and stretches a foot out, gingerly lowering one step at a time into the little passageway. Slime and grease threaten to let him fall to the very bottom, and he keeps a better grip on the bars. It seems like an eternity before his feet finally splash into the streams of water, and he is on solid ground. There is no going back now.

Raoul releases the breath he has been holding, and shakes the jitters out of his arm. He tries to keep a cool head, and holds the lantern out before him, letting the yellow light spill over the tunnel and expose the trail. A rat scuttles away from it, but rats do not bother Raoul. The smell gets to him, that thick, old musk that hovers in the dark like a cloud. It is combated somewhat by the rush of air from above, and Raoul can tolerate it long enough. He proceeds forward, straight ahead, and prays that instinct and buried memory will take him back to the place that never leaves his dreams.

The passage is longer than he remembers, perhaps because he was running his fastest when he first moved through it, but the longer he walks the more the scenery appears to be the same as what he just passed. A man could lose his mind down here, trying to find a way out. Behind him is black, and before him is only what the yellow light will betray.

The night grows colder, and even down here, where all is black, he can tell that it must be at least past three in the morning. He has been walking for almost three hours, and just when he is convinced that he somehow managed to take a turn and lose his way, his lantern exposes the dead end. It is nothing but a wall, assembled stones and gutters, what he has been staring at for the entire journey. There is nothing here, no door, no latch, just the shine of stale water as it drips from the top of the tunnel.

Raoul runs his hand over the dead end, over each stone, feeling for something out of the ordinary. He knows Erik better than to assume this is only a wall, and persists, even coming to kneel before it and grope in the dim light, until a jagged piece of rusted metal scrapes along the underside of his forefinger. Raoul recoils, and resists the urge to suck on his new wound, but crouches further, and holds the lantern to the very bottom of the piece. The side of it comes to his notice – it does not line up with the rest of the passage. He was right. It is a doorway, but whoever last closed it did not care enough to close it all the way.

Raoul stands, and with the toe of his boot he presses down on the piece of metal. Pressure causes the door to ease out of its position, ever so slowly, and before long Raoul's fingers may come between it and the left wall. He releases it, and sets the lantern down a safe distance away. With all the strength he can muster, he grips the door, and pulls as hard as can. It comes free, bit by bit, and is surprisingly quiet as it does so. It is only open enough for him to squeeze past, and Raoul steps back to pick his lantern up. The candles are still lit within the lair.

Muscles Raoul did not even know he had tighten his chest, and bile rises in his throat in fear or excitement. He cannot decide which, but he soundlessly steps into the opening, and ducks behind one of the heavy drapes. The smell of this chamber is not how he remembers it in the least, but thankfully the traces of rot are gone. It is a different scent, and as he furtively steps away from the drape he sees the source of the odor.

Bottles. Everywhere. Broken, whole, unopened, opened, spilled, gathered around strips of unused canvas, collected about the containers of open paint. Raoul sets his lantern down and only stares at the scene around him, in disgust, in horror, and in vague wonder. Erik does not live like this. It is all the thought that runs through his head as he plucks one of the bottles up to look it over. Erik, in all of his darkest moments, in all of his faults and flaws, in all of his loneliness never lived like this. That is something Raoul most definitely does remember.

Dust collects on the organ, and papers are scattered on the seat, some splattered with old blood. It has not been used in months.

He drops the bottle onto one of the piles of curtains, and it makes a muffled crash. Raoul moves further into the lair, surveying the surroundings. A flood of memories come back to him, but none so prominent as the one of fear. He swallows hard, and pushes it under.

Fear turns to a feeling indescribable, white, and cold, heavy, and it settles in the very pit of his stomach as he moves into the den. In the armchair is a body, half naked with a bottle in the dark lap, and the head is laid against the back of the chair, eyes open and forward.

Erik.


	7. 7

**Author's Note: **This one has a lot more dialogue. The next few are going to be like pulling teeth. Huh. VictoriaTai, your link was lost. ate it. :) Thank you all for your encouragement!

* * *

**7 **

He is drunk, but Raoul can see that Erik is beginning to taper into sobriety by the way he keeps stabbing his shaking hands through his unruly pieces of dark hair as they fall into his eyes. Erik did not seem surprised to see Raoul there, or if he was he is simply too drunk to act on it. He only shifts in his chair, and watches Raoul with eyes that seem to not belong in their sockets, heavy-lidded, and dark with their drink.

Erik has changed in past five months, greatly. He is almost nothing of the man Raoul remembers, and there is no trace of the figment that haunted him in Box Five. He is thinner. He is not thin enough to seem inferior to Raoul, if such a thing is ever possible, but there is a noticeable difference. Even so, Erik does not appear weak. To Raoul he will never appear weak, even in a state such as this. Raoul was always the weak one.

There is no mask on the unforgettable features, but as Raoul looks around he realizes there is not a need for one. Almost all the mirrors have been smashed. The even side of Erik's face, chalky and dithered with sweat, is still as handsome as Erik should have been. Beautiful, even. Raoul has been haunted by both sides of that face for so long, and yet his horror and fascination are always the same. How can there be such a sudden shift in appearance, how can a man be so hideously malformed on the other half of such majesty?

There is something feral about him now that was not there before. Perhaps it is the drink hovering around him still, or the gleam in his uneven eyes as they follow Raoul's every movement. It is either desperation, or an unseen power yet to be unleashed. Dark hair hangs low around the twisted side, and the mouth spreads to what should be a rakish grin. Erik has not left his seat, and he watches Raoul pace around the chair, thick fingers drumming the leather arms.

"You came back," he breathes, half-aware, and swallows hard. His eyes close, as if he is trying to catch his breath. He must be sick. "You came back to me. How careless I can be." Raoul glances over his shoulder at the still-open passage he assumes Erik is referring to. The younger man removes his bares hands from the pockets of his coat, and he draws in a sharp breath.

"I thought you dead."

It is all Raoul can say. He wishes he could say more, he wants to say more, but he is afraid that what is running through his mind will fall clumsily out of his mouth, and he will be that cowardly young man again, ashamed, clinging to a warm body in a stale, icy lake. Even now he looks on the Phantom and can only remember him as he was, a stronger, captivating Erik with hardly a soul in that menacing shell of a body. Though Erik has a soul, and Raoul remembers when it showed its face perhaps most vividly of all. Flashes of damp sheets accompany it, whispers in the darkness, hot weight down on his bare skin, lips grazing his cheek, his temple, pressed into his hair, murmuring horrible, wonderful things.

He takes another breath, and tries to let his attention flood back in the proper direction. Erik is clad in only a pair of black pants. He must be freezing. Raoul notices his bare arms, and running down them are silver lines, tinged with a throbbing purple scar tissue. More twisted flesh on an otherwise unmarred body. How Erik must hate it, he thinks. But Erik healed, and he lived through his own irrational actions. There is something to be said for that, at least.

Raoul stops staring, and he flicks his gaze up to the Phantom's eyes. Definitely sober now.

"You lead them to me," Erik whispers, hollow, deep in his throat. Raoul frowns. Them? His demeanor changes entirely, and he stumbles to his feet, swaying slightly to the left and bracing the back of the chair for balance. The bottle on his lap has slid to the floor, and rolls to Raoul's feet. He sees in Erik's wide eyes a mixture of confusion, then murderous anger, and mortification. "You lead them to me, didn't you, you little monster – you remembered the way and you lead them here!"

Raoul shakes his head, slowly. He stays put, and glances toward the passage again. "You're drunk," he says, softly. "And paranoid. No one knows I came here. I came alone." When he looks back at Erik the other man seems suspicious still, eyes narrowed, lips parted in concentration he cannot seem to hold. "I never lied to you," Raoul tells him. "I am not lying now."

"Then why have you returned?"

"Don't ask me that."

"Why, Vicomte, I demand an answer," Erik's voice, slurred and angry, echoes off the cavern walls.

"To see what had become of you," Raoul snaps, against his own will the words escape. Erik's expression alters from suspicion to unmistakable amusement, and rather than be backed into a corner like prey he instantly becomes the predator. All body language changes, and he straightens, coming slowly around the chair, stalking.

"What had become of me?" he whispers, dry-throated and hoarse. His arms fall to his sides, and his shoulders slope down as he nears the younger man. "To see if I had left? If you would find my rotting corpse, or if perhaps you were still in my good graces?" Erik keeps coming closer, and Raoul stays his ground, even as the taller man stands right before him, towering as he always does even like this. He is not so tall, Raoul reminds himself. Erik only holds a few inches over his own stature, but it is all Erik needs.

The split face drains of amusement. It is white, and pale, and something he will not entirely speak of lingers behind the two-way mirror of his eyes. "You wanted to know if I had recovered from the infection and fever but did you expect to see this? Did you?"

"No," Raoul admits, hotly.

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know!" It has become yet another argument, and Raoul swears under his breath for giving into his temper. It is all Erik wants. He looks away, and clenches his teeth. "I didn't know what to expect," he says again, calm as he can.

"What if I were to take you prisoner again?" Erik asks, softly, and brings Raoul to stare at him again, disbelief. "What if I were to tie you down here like a dog again, put you in the lake? Would you expect that from me now?"

Raoul can smell the liquor on Erik, it is so thick that if he were a lesser man he would choke. Raoul stares straight back at Erik, in the eyes, and he does not waver. "But you won't," he tells Erik.

"How can you know that?" Erik seethes. "Knowing what you know of me?" He steps closer. "My treachery?" He is so close Raoul can feel the heat of his breath on his cheek. Erik knows how to take him back, and it is exactly what he is trying to do.

"I am stronger now," Raoul replies, evenly. "You know as much. You know I will not be put back in your dungeons."

Erik stares at him, stark and undecided. He is calculating something, and finally he turns away, and his hands find his face. "Go away," he mutters, finally resigned. Erik stoops, and searches amongst the piles of discarded paint and paintings, brushes and clothing for a shirt. He cannot seem to find one. "Do not see me like this. Leave me alone," Erik says again, and when he cannot find a shirt he begrudgedly wraps both long arms around himself, shaking involuntarily. He comes to rest on the chair again, sideways, and sits in silence. He is plainly shivering.

Raoul can only watch so long before his sympathy gets the best of him, and he removes his coat slowly, coming to stand behind Erik and draping it over the Phantom's shoulders. Erik snorts, disgusted, and shrugs it off, but Raoul picks it back up and spreads it across his back again. He tucks it over the curve of his shoulders and into the crook of his neck.

"You are freezing," Raoul remarks. "And you are drunk. You pride yourself on superior intellect, so stop being obstinate and moronic." This earns a glance from Erik, and much to Raoul's surprise he only grunts, noncommittally, and looks away again.

"Well," Erik says, after a moment. "You came down to find me, and you succeeded. What do you want now." It is more a disinterested statement than a question, half-hearted, and Raoul is not even certain he knows the answer to it, so he says nothing. When Erik speaks again his voice is quiet, and for once, civil. There is no more drunken slur, and his back straightens. The coat falls down around him again, exposing the slope of his bare back; the gently moving muscles beneath the skin as he breathes, the line of his backbone. Raoul wishes he did not notice these things.

"Raoul," Erik uses his name. Raoul closes his eyes, and covers them with a cupped hand. Erik used his name. "I am asking you to leave me, without anger, threat, or contempt. You have seen me. Be satisfied, and leave me alone here."

Raoul cannot deny what Erik has lowered himself so far to ask. For now, he will leave.


	8. 8

**Author's Note**: Just a few words before I send this out. VictoriaTai, got your link, thank you :) This is the Necessary Chapter of Emotional Confessions. Hoo. Hope it meets everyone's expectations. Thanks, everyone, for reading :)

* * *

**8**

Madame Giry was kind enough to come and pay Raoul a visit, and for that he is supremely grateful. In his enormous house he has had none to speak to, only himself, and he knew that if he could not tell a soul of Erik's condition, he would die from the silence. He tells her, and she listens.

Madame Giry only stares at him, incredulously. Her long fingers are shaking around the handle of the tea cup, and she sets it down carefully into the porcelain saucer. Raoul almost thinks that perhaps he should not have told her, but when he averts his eyes she only cranes her neck to better see his face. "Then... then he is alive?" Her hand creeps across the table, as if reaching for something, but stops short of his, curling into the napkin she holds. "You saw him? Spoke to him?"

Raoul nods, slowly. He begins to absently stir the contents of his cup, and exhales, hard. "Barely," he says. Raoul glances up at the ballet instructor, wearily. "He drinks. All he does is drink." Her otherwise impenetrable countenance seems frailer now, and her pale eyes glass over. She presses her napkin to her lips and closes her eyes, tight. Raoul did not mean to make her cry, and he was not expecting such a reaction.

"Forgive me," Madame Giry quickly composes herself, and breathes in deeply, letting it out again. Her expression remains pinkened with emotion, but strong. She clears her throat. "To cry for him, after all he has done to you..."

Raoul shakes his head. "No, no – I understand... more so than..." his voice quiets, distractedly, and he turns his attention back to his tea. "...than when you first told me the truth. I refused to listen, then. But I remember."

Madame Giry nods, quietly, and folds her hands back in her lap. They sit in a sort of awkward silence for sometime, but Raoul seems to know that she is still looking at him without seeing it. He shifts uncomfortably, and Madame Giry fears she is about to tread where her questions are not welcome, but it seems uneasily necessary to ask. Raoul is keeping something from her, and from the way he moves, the way his eyes keep shifting from her to everything but her, she senses that he is not entirely opposed to telling. Perhaps it weighs on his chest as it weighs on her mind.

When she opens her mouth to speak, he makes a point of not looking in her direction. "Vicomte," she says, softly. "May I ask you something?"

Raoul lifts his chin, and he keeps his eyes forward. She can only see his sharp profile, and the clear chagrin creeping into his face. "You want to know why I returned to him."

Madame Giry closes her eyes, briefly. "Yes. Weren't you afraid?"

"No," Raoul shakes his head. It seems if he could turn away from her completely he would, but he is far too polite, even now, to do so. He fumbles with his spoon, somewhat numbly. "No. I didn't know what I would find," he says. "But I knew he wouldn't hurt me, I – he wouldn't. Not now."

"He is capable of great love," Madame Giry says, gravely. "And hate, as you could not imagine. Even caring for Christine enough to spare your life..." She trails off. Raoul has ducked his head, and a hand is cradling his forehead, hiding his eyes. What she can see of his face is crumbled, and as she expects, his shoulders tremor once, silent, and not even the silence can hold. His sobs are spanned away from one another, and soft as whispers, but they are so sorrowful that Madame Giry cannot help but reach over to him. She touches his hair, gently, and says nothing.

The Vicomte is crying before her, and her heart goes out to him. It is such a sad sight, a grown man reduced to the tears of a boy again, crying away torment and memories. She gives his hair a final pet, and takes her hand back. "Monsieur," she whispers, and he looks at her, eyes red-veined and glistening. "Tell me what happened to you."

Raoul looks away again before speaking, and he draws in a long breath, roughly wiping his eyes and smearing wetness down his cheeks. "I..." he croaks, and Madame Giry pushes his napkin closer to him, but he ignores it. "I will tell you," he says. "But you won't believe it. And if you do, you'll never look on me as a man again," his face breaks, and he flattens a palm to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "But I have no one to talk to. I'm alone in this and – you're the only person who would even try to understand."

Madame Giry delicately pushes the start of a tear from her own eyelid, and straightens. "Monsieur, there is nothing you could say to make me think less of you. I do not know you as others know you, but what I do know of you I find honorable. I will do my best to understand."

He glances at her, eyes swelling with wear and emotion, but Raoul exhales, and proceeds nonetheless. His voice is unsteady. Perhaps his strength is beginning to break after all.

"He did things to me," Raoul beings. "Horrible things. She ripped out his soul, and he only found me to blame for it. There was nothing else he could take vengeance on without ripping himself apart even more, and oh, he took it. He took everything. Everyday seemed like waking up into a nightmare – I wanted to die. I was always afraid, or hungry, or cold. I lived for so long in misery, waiting for anything to happen, even if it was something else horrible. I hated him," he growls, and she can see that even sitting here he has returned to that place again, with all the frustration, and fear, and unmitigated anger. His teeth clench, but he continues on.

"I hated him so much... and he loved it. He adored my suffering. It kept him sane, I think. He would beat me when I was insolent, starve me when I became too strong..." Madame Giry watches the anger die from his face, and lonesome sadness returns. She can see it, almost exactly as the events must have played themselves out in Erik's dungeon. She frowns. No, not so much sadness. Shame. Bitter shame. "I was all alone," he murmurs. "So alone. She had abandoned me. Everyone had abandoned me there, but him. He would be so horrible to me, and so," he sniffs, hard, and fresh tears emerge. He does not bother to stop them.

"Sometimes he would be a comfort. He would be..." Raoul wearily brings his hand to the bridge of his nose, and pinches, closing his eyes and creasing his brow. He battles for the courage to continue speaking. "He would be so ...wonderful to me. I cannot describe it, I don't think you would understand, but... he was kind like I have never thought him capable. And things began to change. I began to change. I saw that he was alone, too, but now I knew just what it meant to be so alone.'

'I couldn't hate him anymore. I tried, but I couldn't find it in me to hate him. I was never fond of him, but..." Raoul covers his eyes. His voice becomes a paper-thin confession, shallow. "I wanted him. I wanted him to want me. He touched me. I let him touch me, and I touched him. We began to... to do this regularly," A sob. Madame Giry brings a hand up to just barely touch her lips, lost for words. She feels the breath leave her body and she holds it, waiting in frozen silence for him to continue.

"And I was happy," he croaks, miserably. "I was content, I was human again, only when he was there. I let him in. I let him have me, willingly, I let him do that to me. Caring for him became my world, because I had nothing else in the world. He cried, sometimes."

Raoul lifts his head, voice still thick with departing tears, and his face is finally becoming still. His eyes trail to some distant location. He is too far lost in thought to care if she can still see his face. The tears dry in tracks on his cheeks. "He told me that he could only destroy me. He almost killed himself, and he threw me out after I found him bleeding to death. He gave me back to this world. I traded one Hell for another."

He glances at Madame Giry for perhaps the first time since he began, and when he sees her expression he snorts in disgust of himself, coming briskly to his feet and running both hands through his hair. "I was expecting that look from you," he tells her. "But I can't blame you for feeling as you do. I don't even think Erik fully understands what we did," Raoul pauses, and he comes to stand numbly beside his chair, hands curling to brace the back of it. "What we became... what he violated." He blinks, distantly. "In that, he is so much younger than I."

Something is playing out in his mind, but she cannot depict what it is, and she will not ask. Raoul has bared the darkest side of his soul to her, and Madame Giry can find no words to comfort him. She had suspected a bond of some kind, something that would be strong enough to bring Raoul back to the place he fears the most, but not this. Never this. Raoul always seemed so genuinely practical. He has, indeed, changed.

She catches herself staring at him when his eyes flick to hers. He smiles. It takes courage, and dignity to smile at times like these.

"I have offended you," he says. "Forgive me."

"No," she replies. "I will say it again: few men possess your bravery."

"It takes more than that," he murmurs. "Bravery is nothing if it is not acceptable."

"So many things in our world are unacceptable. And they are given no chance to grow." He looks at her, half-curiosity, and mingled with something hopeful. He was truly not expecting kindness, not even from this woman. It sends an ache to her heart, and Madame Giry absently touches her breast, fingers against her collarbone. "Raoul... the man you have come to know... I love him because I tried to save him. I found too late after that I could not, but I was so young then I could do nothing for it. I gave him a chance to stay alive, but not to live. I bought him no happiness, despite my compassion. These things weigh all the more heavily when you come to have children, and you realize that without love a human being cannot learn to love, or live."

Raoul lowers himself back into his chair, and his honey hair, unruly now, falls about into his blue eyes. Madame Giry blots at hers with her napkin, and she shakes her head.

"Erik has never had anyone," she catches his gaze, and averts her eyes, embarrassed to point such things out. Madame Giry cranes her neck to see the ceiling and inhales gently. "He had, if only for a while, you to care for him. Perhaps you are meant to care for him," she looks at Raoul. "Bring him out, back into this world so he is allowed to live. Perhaps you are meant to be his shelter."


	9. 9

**9**

He found himself beside that familiar dead end again, and no more certain than he was one week ago, tracing gloved fingers over the stones in the wall. The passage was open, and he wandered inside. Raoul hesitated, in fear, in doubt – he was mainly plagued with wonder, if all Madame Giry had said meant anything at all. And if it were true, whether or not Erik would accept this new position in society. He wondered if Erik was even ready for it, to be exposed to the world.

Now Raoul looks around the cavern for Erik, and of course finds absolutely nothing. He stops beside the organ, and rolls his eyes, setting his hip against it and absently relighting some of the deadened candles. It is so strange, this. It almost feels like home, as he picks up the chore of mundane abandoned tasks.

In the distance the lake stirs, and draws his attention to the shadowed area around the thick bars of the gate. It is Erik, wading back into the light. He sees Raoul, and stops in the waist deep water, armed with a scowl of his own. Raoul straightens, and puts the candles back.

"Why do you insist on being cryptic and secretive even when there is none around to impress?" he asks the unmasked Phantom, and Erik snorts, reaching up to comb his wet hair with long fingers. Raoul studies his movements, and by the way he carries himself out of the lake it is clear that Erik is, yet again, very drunk. He does not even bother to dress when he reaches the bank, and ignores the discarded pile of clothes.

"You try my patience," he husks, dripping and unkempt. Erik pauses, and scowls at the curtains that cover the passageway, as they ripple in the foreign breeze. "Do not tell me how you managed to get inside again."

"You left it open," Raoul points out. "You knew I would come back." He remains where he stands as Erik turns away from him and moves to the passage to close it. With no clothing, and in plain sight, Raoul can see just how Erik's health has truly deteriorated. His skin is ashen and by the second seems to dry out, with veins prominent where Raoul does not remember them. When he again faces the boy his eyes are sunken, and shadowed by dark circles that seem to extend to the point of his cheekbones. Raoul tilts his head, as Erik shakily fits back into his trousers. "You look terrible."

Erik laughs. It is a horrible sound. "Would you be disappointed to hear you were not the first to tell me?"

"I didn't come to feed your sick sense of humor," Raoul says, and this earns another husky laugh. "I came for a reason."

"What reason might that be?" Erik buttons the top of his pants, and bends down, scooping a folded white shirt from beneath two empty bottles.

"I have..." Raoul finds himself ducking his head again, and even drunk, he can feel Erik's satisfaction at the aversion of the boy's eyes. "I have a business proposition for you. Something that could greatly benefit both of us, if you are willing to hear it."

"Nothing you have will better my situation," Erik growls, and Raoul feels a stab of pain to an open wound. He ignores the fact that it might be true. "And more than that there is no longer a...want in me to go on with this life. I am better left here."

The monster shudders, and reels. His shirt hangs around his frame. Raoul descends the steps, one, two, and stands almost before him. He fumbles with the envelope in his fingers, and uses it as an excuse to take his eyes off of Erik.

"You once told me," he begins again, and glances up at Erik. The larger man is unsteady, and lacing his shirt up. "—you once told me that you had nothing left to live for but your music. I'm offering you a chance to live for what you love... your music is something that this world has never heard before." Raoul feels a smile come on his face, involuntary, admiring. Erik hardly seems to even notice his smile. If only he did. "Can you imagine such glory? I would support your art entirely, and we would tour the... the world." His smile broadens, even as Erik turns away in disgust. "And the world will love you."

The damp head snaps back to regard him, eyes uneven, and narrowing into hateful slits of clouded pale green. Raoul notices he is not standing straight, and it is almost as if he is sinking away from his uninvited guest. "Love me?" he snarls, and his voice gives way to a brittle grate. His fingers, trembling, dig into the twisted flesh of his visage. "With this face!" Erik shouts. "With this face!" Raoul reaches out as Erik begins to crumble, and he grips hard onto the other man's biceps.

Erik puts up no resistance, and Raoul can feel that his skin is lacking entirely of sweat, and his weakness increases as his legs give way. He falls hard at Raoul's feet, into a heap of exhaustion, and the boy immediately kneels at his side. He tests the pulse beneath Erik's chin and feels hard palpitations, and the soft raise of prominent veins beneath his fingers. Swearing viciously, Raoul attempts to lift Erik off of the ground. The fool has been eating nothing, drinking nothing but poison for God only knows how long, and Raoul is left alone to pick up his pieces.


	10. 10

**Author's Note: **Shorter, sweeter, gayer. Cherusha, thanks for the rec : ) Made me feel warm and fuzzy! Thanks everyone for reading, and giving such great feedback!

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**10 **

Erik is dead to the world, curled into the swan bed and fettered to a dreamless sleep.

Raoul quietly walks about the lair, picking up empty bottles and trying to clear the floor. The fact that he is neither estranged nor intimidated by the darkness of his surroundings is somewhat disturbing, but at this point he can let it just pass over. He has come to accept his attachment to this place, however fearful it may be. Erik is no more intimidating than a child, sleeping the night away in a warm bed.

And when he comes to, he will know that.

Raoul remembers where Erik keeps his fresh water, and collects two bottles of it, coming slowly into the darkened chamber. Erik has not moved from his indention into the bed, and the twisted side of his face is pressed into the pillow. He is simply another man, with a face like any other, but beautiful. It is unfair, that his face should have such a lovely side. It is something like false hope in the mind of one like Erik - halfway to perfection and halfway from.

He does not play with the thick strands of dark hair as they curl slightly around the smooth white of Erik's temple and forehead, as Erik might have done to him once. Raoul simply does not find that appropriate any longer, if their relationship is to take turn for professional. He still thinks of Erik. Misses him, even, however deranged it may be to miss the touch of such a monster. He sets the bottle down on the little table beside the bed, and thinks about how unprofessional it would be to lay down beside Erik.

He thinks about how ridiculous it would be, just to lower himself into the mattress, wary of the shift in weight stirring Erik back into a frenzied consciousness, and laying his head on the pillow. How improper it would be to even close his eyes, and concentrate on the heat beside him, however weak it resonates from Erik's fallen form. Raoul ponders the utter indecency, even as he does just that.

Erik breathes so shallowly, and Raoul misses the feel of his skin. The way the mattress falls in around Erik's form is unfamiliar to him. So much has changed.

The back of Erik's head is all he can see while lying beside him in the big bed, and slack shoulder as it falls forward, making Erik appear almost smaller than he really is. Raoul pulls himself up to sit, and even after only a few moments beside him he comes to just stand beside the bed, and picks up the bottle. It takes only a gentle shake of the shoulder to wake Erik, and he stirs sleepily, rolling over onto his back and taking his welcome with a hard scowl, squinting even in the candle light.

"Here," Raoul says, and he passes the clear bottle over to Erik. "Drink this." Raoul does not feel like fighting with Erik on this, so when Erik does not accept the water he only thrusts it out again, and the Phantom rolls his eyes, snatching it from him. He downs the entire bottle, in big swallows. "Not too fast," the Vicomte, feeling quite ridiculous, warns him. Erik hands it back to him, empty, and blots the water left on his upper lip with his sleeve.

They regard one another in silence a moment, until Erik's face splits into an ugly smile.

"This is a sight that must have made your day, Vicomte," he mutters, and it is low in his throat, laced with bitterness. "Seeing what I have become." Erik snorts, and looks down to his thin body with distaste. "Vindictive little wretch."

The words bite into Raoul, and anger stirs like vomit in his belly. He reaches out and strikes Erik, hard, across the unmarked side of his face. As he expected - and, Raoul finds to his own disturbed surprised, as he wanted - Erik rises off of the bed in retaliation, on his knees to level with Raoul's face, and catches his by both wrists. There is still strength in him to squeeze, and he gives it his all. He crushes, bruises, so hard that pain shoots through Raoul's forearms and into his curled fingers, but he does not protest.

The pain increases, and Erik leans forward, warning him not to cross his path again, and Raoul does not mind. Some part of him, down inside, past the confessions and torment, wants this from Erik. There is a desire for Erik to keep charge, and to stay strong, and so he turns his head away, and closes his eyes to bear it, until his breath becomes quick and sweat beads on his brow. Raoul finally feels the pressure release, and he opens his eyes. Erik lets him go, and sits back on the bed.

"Never again," the Phantom warns, and his head is turned away from Raoul's sight.

Raoul only straightens, and his face is flushed with color. "Care for yourself," is all he can say. Erik snorts again, and Raoul resists the urge to run his fingers through his hair and pace around the room. It is what he would do back before he was taken when frustration hit him, but he has not done so in a very long time. Raoul runs stiff fingers over the pressed skin of his wrists, and admires the newly forming bruise. It does not hurt.

Erik is still not looking at him. "Why are you still here," he says. It is almost more of a statement than a question. Raoul answers it with a question.

"Have you even considered my offer?"

Erik glances over at him, leveled and sardonic. "I have been unconscious."

"And what about now?" Raoul asks again. "Don't you want to see this world? Be part of it again?"

"I have seen this world," Erik says. He is quiet for a long moment, staring forward at something Raoul cannot see. It is entirely dark, but Erik still manages to find something to focus on. After some time, he turns his head to regard Raoul again, eyes more open now, and color returning slowly to the ashen face. His white lips twitch, as if he wants to say something, or smile, but what reason would Erik ever have to smile?

Erik slowly brings himself off the bed, and he stands beside Raoul, awkward and slouched. The younger man watches, as slowly but surely the straight of his posture returns, and though he wears a ragged white shirt that hangs off his frame, he may as well be wearing a dress coat.

"Come," Erik says, and to Raoul's surprise, if not his utter shock, he holds out a hand, palm upturned with fingers slightly curled. As many boundaries as Raoul has crossed, he has never taken the hand of a man as if he were the woman. He frowns at it, first. Then Raoul touches Erik's hand, and allows himself to be pulled out of the bedroom and down the steps behind the organ. "You will understand."


	11. 11

**11**

As they passed one of the tables behind the organ he took from one of the headstands one of his ivory masks, covered in dust, as it has not been worn in sometime. He wears it for Raoul now, and it comes as somewhat of a comfort to the boy as they move through another doorway he has never seen before. Erik keeps his secrets well. He still has Raoul's hand, and says nothing through the walk down the dark steps. It is not entirely dark as they approach the end.

There is a faint glow that resonates just enough to give their surroundings a hint of color. Raoul wonders where the light is coming from, and just as he is about to ask they stop just before it.

A window, slanted down and built with glass, supported by hand-shaped brass of beautiful design, though it looks up into the iron bars of another grate. Erik brings him to crouch before it, and he turns to the boy, with the light half on his unmasked face.

"It cannot be morning," Raoul murmurs, and Erik seems to almost smile, a look not at all unpleasant on such cold features.

"It is the light of day," he says. "You see, I have not forgotten what it looks like, or how it feels."

"I thought you were always shrouded in darkness," Raoul cranes his neck, and the light spills warm onto his face and neck, over his closed eyes. He opens them to face the Phantom. "I was wrong."

"It is the only place underground in which to see the sun," Erik says. "It is never so beautiful as it is here, where none can see how we long for it."

Raoul dips his chin, and cannot stop a slow smile. "You never brought me here," he says quietly. "When..."

Erik will not look at him, and turns entirely to the side. He is only a mask now. "I knew it would only make you want more to leave," he says. "And I would not have it in me to deny you that." Raoul's smile fades, and silence again takes them both. He did not want to leave, or stay, unless Erik was beside him, but Erik will not hear it. He misses times and places like these, when all is quiet and no words will come or express such joy. Now it is a disheartened, dying sense of joy, because Erik will not listen.

"You never answered me," Raoul says, and Erik stirs, frowning slightly and the masks seems to subtly push out his upper lip into almost a pout, as he regards the younger man. "I am offering you this," he gestures to the golden light, young with the rise of morning. "To let it be yours again." Erik's frown deepens, and before he can speak against it Raoul holds up a hand. "I can give you protection, as well. There is freedom out there for any man, as long as he is protected by another."

Erik comes slowly to his feet, standing. "I do not need your protection," he says. "Because you do not mean protection, you mean money. Paying off those who know to tell the world I am a composer who suffered burns from some horrible accident, instead of what I am: a menacing omen, to all who look on me and my disfigurement. I do not need your 'protection', Vicomte. I prefer solitude."

"No," Raoul says softly, looking up at him from beside the window. "You don't." He stands as well, and his hand is taken again, with fingers warmed by the sun. Erik leads him away from the light, through the darkness, up long steps and back into the content glow of the candles. When they reach the organ Erik releases his hand, and moves to the side of it. He lifts a familiar black box from a scattered pile of papers, and Raoul feels his insides clench as he is again handed the violin.

"You forgot this," Erik says. "Take it with you. I have no use for it."

Raoul keeps it in his arms, and he bites back a smile. He steps closer to Erik, and the Phantom stands in silence, erect and square-shouldered despite his disheveled appearance. "I will not return here," Raoul says. "Consider my offer, and in time I can only trust that you will come to me."


	12. 12

**12**

Since she was a girl studying in the Opera House, Madame Giry has always checked the dressing rooms before closing them each and turning the lock for the night. La Carlotta's room is always the very last of these, even after the events of the disaster. She moves costumes to the side, searches through the bushes of flowers and ribbons, and gives the place a clear sweep before turning to leave, but when she turns to secure the mirror she finds it ajar for the first time in almost two years.

Erik is nowhere in sight, and her blood freezes in her veins, heart throbbing violently - Madame Giry touches her collar, eyes wide and lips parted with her quickened, shallow breath. He is somewhere in the room with her and will not show himself. She has had no reason to fear him in all the years they have known one another, but after the disaster Erik became vicious. He only ever threatened to kill his hostage, and when he did not ignore her pleas he ruthlessly refused them.

The door closes, softly, and he whirls, every muscle in her body tense and ready to bolt, but she stayed put. He is there, standing silent by the door. Erik is everything Raoul described; worn, thinner, and he has neglected his mask. It has been long years since she saw his disfigurement so close, and though she will never voice such a thing, it still strikes horror and wonder within. Erik catches her staring, and he clears his throat, somewhat awkwardly, if ever Erik could be awkward.

"I thought it not appropriate," he says, gesturing to his lack of a mask. Madame Giry remains silent, and her icy blue fix follows him as he steps from the door. She holds her breath tight in her chest. Erik seems to read from her face, and her silence, and his own expression changes. Somewhat resigned, if not more alone than she has ever known him to be. "You have spoken to him."

"Yes," she breathes. A threshold breaks, and words spill from her with emotion like water from a broken dam. She curls her fingers into the material of her collar, tighter. "Erik, how could you have he was only a boy, he never deserved it!"

"I did what was necessary for my own peace of mind."

"And it only drove you both to madness and back," she snaps. "You made him question everything he has ever believed to be right, and left him alone to stew in guilt, guilt over caring for you!"

"I never left him," Erik snarls. "I was there all the time!" Madame Giry falls silent again, and grows very cold as she regards him. She steps up, and closes the distance between them. Erik glares at her, nostrils flared and eyes hard. Madame Giry slaps him, hard, across the face, enough to send a burning sting into her own fingers. Erik does not react, and she slaps him again, and again, until she finally pulls him into her arms and holds him.

They remain like that for a long while, and minutes pass by in the late dark. She pushes his hair tenderly from his face, buried in the crook of her shoulder. Breathing in slowly, Madame Giry closes her eyes.

"Will you be all right?" she asks him, quietly.

"I assume you know what he wants. Did he tell you?" Erik pulls away, and turns from her. His silhouette is dark in the yellow light, and his hands are rooted in his unruly hair.

"Go with him," she says. "Leave this place. Both of you need no more from Paris."

Erik is silent, and then the dark head rises, slightly. "Do you know?" he asks, a barely audible hush. "Everything?"

Madame Giry touches his arm, but she will not answer.


	13. 13

**Authors Note:** _The chapter In Which Erik Has Been Laid Twice and Thinks Its Time to Cut Back.  
Just a note I've outline this mother all the way through, and of course it takes me six years to get things started, but in the next two chapters things are going to take off. I apologize for all the ass-dragging. Thanks for reading!

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**13**

October passed into an orange November, ever growing colder in the city of Paris. For Raoul the days have gone by as an endless, exhausting procession of hours that bring on unstructured sleep and restless wake. He has waited for Erik, and for something to change, but when he promised not to return to that place below the surface of the earth he meant what he said.

Raoul hardly sleeps, but the servants have grown accustomed to his schedule, and when they walk home for the night it is not uncommon to see the light on in the highest window, with the Vicomte pacing back and forth before it, casting long shadows onto the stretch of orange light that makes it down onto the street. Raoul himself is beginning to lose faith, that Erik has surrendered to his solitude at last and drank himself to death. He has waited, going about the activities of his day with half a head and less of a heart.

He has turned in for the night now, alone in an enormous dark house with the candles smothered in every room but his own. Raoul never feared the darkness before, and to say he retains such a childish fear even now would be untrue. It simply makes him uneasy, and on winter nights this room can become black and impenetrable. He will stir restlessly for hours in the coldest of sweats, and not actually come to sleep until a candle is lit beside his bed. The idea of total darkness does not sit well with him. He has known it, and come to hate it.

Raoul did not, however, spend a year in only artificial light, and true darkness without learning from it. He knows now not to dismiss the gentle shift of air in the room around him, or a flutter of the drapes hanging at the balcony. He opens his eyes again, and slides up in the blankets to sit, letting them fall from his bare shoulders. The candle is dim at his side, and only succeeds in a gentle glow, but is enough to betray his intruder. In the dark, Erik smiles; a frightening gesture of sardonic majesty. His eyes do not match the amenity of his mouth, if even the smile can be labeled as such.

"I suppose doors do not suit you," Raoul says to the darkness, and Erik moves to the table beside his bed, soundless and graceful as a shadow on the wall. His black cloak hangs about him like a bell, and until he reaches the light of the candle he is near invisible, hidden beneath it. Raoul waits, and watches the Phantom light the lamps meticulously, and it is almost as if he knows his way around the room. When he turns the face appears again, half-masked, and followed by a thin shine on neatly combed dark hair, and the same slow, sardonic smile.

"Only when necessary."

Erik's voice is smooth again, entirely free of the scour of liquor, and the bruising force of his anger. The gentle mock hinted at the corners of his mouth and the height of his cheekbone catch the light, and Raoul sees that his color has almost fully returned. He is still as pale as a ghost, but the ashen screen and dark circles beneath his eyes have departed from his face.

Raoul does his best to bite back a smile. He feels giddy, almost, excited like the child he is, and Erik's reason for entering his room in the dark of night like a criminal has not even crossed his mind. Whether it be to slit his throat, to rob him blind or to accept his offer to leave Paris, Raoul only knows that he is alive, and willing to make contact. Erik must sense his delight, but he says nothing of it, and simply stands away from the light of the lamps. The Vicomte keeps his eyes on his guest, and reaches into his dresser to remove a pair of pants, sliding them on before swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

"I remember you like this," he says, the quietest whisper. "How did I ever forget what you were?" Raoul swallows, and comes, testing, to his feet. He ignores the cold as it rushes in from the balcony's draft and over his bare skin. "You look well."

It does not occur to Raoul how ridiculous he sounds until Erik snorts, and the smile falls to a sour countenance, one Erik does not mind carrying almost all of the of the time. Raoul has long since learned to ignore such an irate gesture when thrown carelessly in his direction, and against any good judgment that might have hindered him in the daylight hours, he moves right into Erik's position and wraps both arms around the other man.

No arms encircle his shivering body in return, and the muscles locked beneath the daunting cage of Erik's frame are rigid. At first Raoul begins to wonder what has changed between them that would provoke such a cold reaction, and almost instantly after the thought strikes he realizes that everything has changed. There is no sanctuary of dark cavern walls to shelter their sin, but a world of eyes ready to judge it. Raoul knows, possibly more than any living person, how Erik fears those eyes.

This does not give Raoul enough incentive to release him, yet. He keeps his arms resting gently about the other mans torso and over his shoulder, with his cheek just barely grazing the flawless side of Erik's face, the jaw-line. Moments pass, and they seem an eternity, but finally, in the slightest gesture of the vaguest affection, Raoul feels the muscles in Erik's neck shift, and his head tilts to allow his cheek to rest against the boys.

As quickly as it touched down it is away again, and Erik's neck is erect, his eyes set forward with his sharp profile. Raoul closes his eyes. _This will be the last time_, he thinks. Not a decision he has taken upon himself to make, but a realization. _When I let him go, it will have been the last time I ever touched him like this. The time for our play is over. Let go of him_. He can hardly obey his own command, but finally releases Erik, and exhales softly through his nose so as not to sigh. Raoul ducks out so his own gaze does not cross Erik's before he is ready to look him in the eyes again, and he reaches into his dresser to pull a shirt on.

The tension in the room immediately seems to lift. Erik is staring at him, with a fix unreadable.

"You spoke of business," he murmurs at last. "How eager are you to leave Paris, Vicomte?"


	14. 14

**14 **

"Will you be all right?" Raoul had asked her, the morning before he stepped gingerly into the tight little cabin of his carriage and left her on a cold Paris street, beneath the even bleaker shadow of the Opera Populaire. Summer always brought the best out of Paris, and winter was a season that stripped all illusion from the glimmer of sun on newly glassed windows. For some reason the thought always passed through Raoul, even if it was just a wordless awareness that rose when he met the eyes of Christine. "On your own, I mean."

Christine had laughed then. Perhaps it was a silly question after all, one that brought out the childish wide eyes and a smile that always turns in at the corners. Raoul remembers that smile, and he drops his eyes, somewhat shyly, to the toes of his shoes. "Forgive me," he said. "I only care about you." When he glanced up again, she was watching him, as if he were the one who truly needed looking after. "Are we not still good friends, Christine?"

"Of course we are," she said, as he took her shivering hand. "Some things never change, Raoul."

He told her he was bound for London, but he was certain not to mention why. Christine would not understand, and he could not have imagined her reaction if he told her who he was to meet when he reached his destination. There is only one other soul who knows the bottom of his plan, and she has sworn to take the secret to her grave.

Raoul has been to London before. It is a dirty, dreary, magnificent city, and it always seems different from what he remembers it to be. Trains roar in the station, groaning and squealing as they rein to hulking stop on the tracks. Steam and soot mingle with the evening mist, and Raoul waits above the dying life of the city several floors up in the Lanceston Royal Hotel. He has been here three days already, and Erik is not with him. He is late, and Raoul does not know why. He tries not to worry over why. Erik is not sloppy, Erik is not late.

But Erik can lie. Erik does lie, like no other, and he takes sincere, genuine pleasure in such things. He knows the craft well - he has been behind a mask since the day he was born. Raoul can trust. He does trust, and it is the undying faith he still has in others that leads him to places like these, a prison of questions with no answers. There are a thousand possibilities, a thousand explanations, and he thinks that if he leans out of the window long enough, with his hands braced on the sill and the metal pressing hard into his lower abdomen, that somehow he will find one of them. It is all he can do to keep himself from going mad.

Erik is late. Erik is not here.

Raoul comes into the room, slowly, and closes the window. He draws the drapes, and as he passes back into his suite he lights the lamps. The Vicomte finds a corner of the large room, and he settles into it, sliding down the wall and bringing his knees up to his chest. Both knees support his elbows, and his head rests against the bottom of a drape. He inhales, deeply, and lets his ribs expand beneath his silk waistcoat. Perhaps he should get some sleep.

The world suddenly seems to large to travel over.


	15. 15

**15**

****

When Erik arrived it was late at night, and Raoul had not moved from his corner. He knew when the door began to slowly open by itself that it was not his breakfast coming in early, or the maid stopping by to change the sheets. He sat perfectly still, and waited for Erik to slip inside, only letting his breath out when the door closed again. It is frightening, how Erik can just ignore things like locks and security, and enter whenever he chooses to. The rules do not seem to apply to him. He knows them well, and knows how to bend them to his will.

Now he sits on the very edge of the big bed, rigidly, and watches Raoul pace. It is somewhat unnerving, and only makes Raoul pace even more. The younger man has already let Erik know just how angry he is for being made to wait for three days, but there is still no hint of remorse on the other mans stoic face. Raoul did not expect any, so he is trying hard to decide why exactly he is still so flustered about it all. Erik only crosses an ankle over to rest on his knee, leisurely, with his the unmasked side of his face steadily held on Raoul's path. The sharp features are mild, and set with a blank expression upon his shadowy countenance.

Raoul is sick of being stared at, and so he ceases his uneasy steps (he refuses to give Erik anymore of that particular pleasure) and stands before the Phantom with his arms crossed, content to stare back blankly. Apparently this does not hold Erik's attention like the pacing did, and he loses interest, inhaling deeply and looking away. One of the gloved hands comes to rest just beneath the placing of his ribs as he lets the breath out through his nose.

Raoul smirks inwardly. Erik has become somewhat pale; perhaps he is more regretful than he chooses to let on to the boy.

"You look as if you have something you want to say," Erik finally speaks, and his voice is a little tight, as if he is exceedingly uncomfortable. Raoul never thought he could possibly take pleasure in watching another human being be uncomfortable, but it is not the only thing he has learned from Erik. The Phantom turns his face back to the wall, and his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard, dragging in another breath. "By all means..."

"I want to know how it is you got in here," Raoul blurts suddenly, before his brain gave his mouth permission to form the words. Always the first thing on his mind and the first thing to come to his lips, tumbling out before him. He feels heat behind his eyes and ears, and swears to himself. He was never so awkward around the girls as he is around Erik, getting so easily flustered, pacing, fidgeting, never certain what to do with his hands. It is like being a boy again and first discovering the functions and dual functions of his own body, how awkward a time that was, unable to fit into the skin he was born with.

Things are different at least in that sense, but all the charisma and charm he has acquired throughout the years are useless before Erik. It is as if they never existed, and shrivel up to die the moment those eyes land on him. He only ever becomes across as a pouting boy to the man. Raoul tries so hard to steer from such an aura, but when he has taken ten steps forward it only takes one word from Erik and he is there again, across from Philippe at dinner, refusing to eat his carrots.

And now, with Erik regarding him as if he just announced the moon was green, he feels ever more ridiculous.

"I registered," Erik replies, smoothly. "The same way - I expect - that you did."

"I meant into my room," Raoul snaps, indignant. "Past security, past my lock, for one thing -- how did you manage that? I want to know."

That earns Raoul a smile, sardonic with the subtle glint of white teeth in the lamplight. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"How am I to trust you if you can just enter, like a criminal, whenever you please, without my consent?"

"And telling you my secrets will remedy the fact that I can?"

"No," Raoul looks away, and wants to slap himself for it. He immediately returns the calculating gaze Erik holds him under, and straightens his posture. "But we are to be together for some time. We need to trust one another. How do I know I can trust you?"

"Trust me to what, Vicomte?" Erik's patience is as thin as his steadily rising voice. "You are running in circles."

"Trust that you have changed," Raoul says quickly. "I need to know that you have changed."

Erik stares at him. It is a long, hard stare that is more intense than the one he held moments ago, even frightening. There is nothing but a brittle anger in those eyes, and beyond Raoul knows there is only more. He can sense these things now, even if Erik will not betray the age old misery that will never cease to linger in his eyes, even in moments of indescribable ecstasy. Erik can never be, and will never be as tender as he truly wishes he could be, and Raoul is a constant reminder of that. The Phantom comes to stand, a slow unfolding of his full height, and he takes several steps from the bed before turning to regard Raoul, passively.

"You ask me that because I am a killer." It is a statement, not a question, and Raoul considers his answer long before speaking it.

"No," He shakes his head, once. "I ask you because you have killed. I don't think you are a killer."

Erik snorts. "Since I was a child I was asked if I could be trusted, even before I had given reasons not to be. And never once, in all my worrying of keeping myself trustworthy did I ever inquire as to whether or not I could trust them. I don't suppose it would have mattered." A small smile strikes the corner of a perfect mouth. The mask remains stationary with his changing expressions. "I have no intention to kill you, to rob you, or desert you without notice, Vicomte. I give you my word. Is that enough?"

Raoul shakes his head again. He pulls the soft material of his robe around his frame tighter, and folds his arms across his chest. "No. I want to know that you have changed."

Erik's nostrils flare and his eyes flash, but he says nothing in retaliation. His gaze follows Raoul as the younger man tentatively approaches him, and finally he opens his mouth to speak.

"And how do you mean to-" before Erik can finish his sentence Raoul leaps forward with both palms flattened and pushes him down onto the floor, hard, sending the other man with a sharp cry to his side. The hand is there again, clutching the bottom of the ribcage, and the pale eyes are staring up at him with a murderous animosity that until now has been restrained. It mingles with a fleeting wave of shock, and confusion, even a flash of fearing betrayal, and then Erik sits up fast, lips trembling around tightly clenched teeth.

"There," Raoul says, quietly, with not a note of triumph in his tone. He stands over Erik, looking down at him, and extends a hand to bring him back up. "The monster would have killed me for that, wouldn't he? The man," Raoul holds back a smile when he feels gloved fingers wrap around his hand. "...understands why I did it."

Erik does not seem happy in the least, but he is clearly considering this risky little experiment of Raoul's. The grip he has on the younger man tightens, and when Raoul leans back on the balls of his feet to pull him up Erik reaches up with the other hand and yanks him downward by the robe. Raoul was not expecting this. He cries out in pain to come so close to the wood floor, pressed into it with his belly down and an arm wrenched behind his back. Erik's weight is upon him a dark shadow over his body, and he can feel the other man lean into his backside and spread along the length of his spine.

He feels the hot breath in his ear before it is even there, because he remembers this, so vivid, as if they are still together in the darkness of that underground. Raoul's head is forced into position by the merciless grip of Erik's leather clad fingers. He keeps quiet. Raoul has learned to tolerate such indignities, and he knows it only gets worse from here. He should have remembered that Erik is not provoked without consequence.

"The monster would kill you, the man would most certainly consider it," Erik says, evenly, amazingly controlled considering the unmitigated rage he only seconds ago unleashed. "But Erik would like to know just what his boy is up to, pushing such limits around as if they are nothing."

"Your boy!" Raul spits angrily, a new wave of hostility rushing up so fast inside him he is near sick and does not think before speaking. "Sir, I am your patron, and will not be even that in another moment -"

"Beneath me you're my boy," Erik snaps, and Raoul forces himself to bite his tongue as the fingers move from his hair and to the nape of his neck, gripping the flesh hard enough to bruise. "Beside me you have the title of my patron. Behave like it." Raoul is pushed again into the floor and it forces a low whimper as the breath is pressed from his body, and he feels heat prickle around his collar again, embarrassed at his own weakness. He hates himself for being so predictable. Erik, however, tenses against him, recoiling with uncertainty though he still holds the boy fast. He almost pulls up a bit, but so slightly that it hardly makes a difference.

Raoul's cheek is crushed into the floor, and whether or not by accident Erik's hips dig into the curve of his backside. It sends a flare of unwelcome excitement through him, if only for a moment, when he feels a familiar hardness grow against the back of his thigh. Erik immediately, self-consciously, brings his hips away from Raoul and sets a knee down to support him instead of leaning over Raoul's prostrate form.

Raoul sighs, hard, in something of relief and disappointment, and when Erik hears the sound he freezes again, hovering in hesitance. Raoul waits to die of humiliation. Sometimes he truly, truly hates his body. Erik is quiet a long moment before he leans slowly back down to put his lips beside Raoul's hear. They move against it so softly, and he shivers all over beneath the confines of his robe.

"You enjoy this?" the faintest whisper, barely audible. The tone is so alien to Erik's throat, inquiring without spite. It is such an honest, pure sound of conflicted understanding that Raoul shakes his head best he can beneath the pressure of that hand, and keeps his voice just as quiet.

"I don't mean to," he whispers, shallowly.

"Don't enjoy it. Do you understand?" Raoul is still. He nods, carefully, and painfully against the floor. Erik releases him, and comes to his feet. "Then never speak of this again."


	16. 16

**Authors Note: **Thanks to my beta for.. beta-ing. : ) Posted chapter 15 twice, thanks for bringing that to my attention. One of those "sleepy mistakes". Thanks for reading!

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**16**

Erik arrived just in time to be relocated. Raoul suspected the other man would not at all appreciate the public atmosphere of a hotel after long, and as they are to be in London for an extended period of time, the Vicomte has taken the liberty of having a private house prepared for the duration of their stay. It is some distance outside of London, overlooking several acres of pasture, but the bluster of the city can still reach the quiet plot of land. It is almost impossible to escape what makes London the city it is, but thus far Erik is handling it well.

He waits besides Raoul at the carriage, as once again their belongings are loaded to depart. It is the cold sunless daylight that Erik is still hiding from, as he keeps close to the shadow of the carriage rather than stand beside Raoul on the sidewalk. His posture is unreadable, like his trained eyes, but Erik does not seem disturbed, even as passersby's stop to wonder at what the mask is hiding on his otherwise smooth and handsome face. Three young women stare at Erik as if they are not certain what to make of this otherwise fine-looking gentleman with a straight back and square shoulders.

Then their eyes land on Raoul, and the stares to turn to shy smiles before the eyes drop and they skitter away. Raoul knows his face heats up whenever he is noticed by the opposite sex, because the tips of his ears burn, and a ghost of a smirk rises into Erik's lineless face. When Raoul catches his stare, the Phantom's mouth becomes a line, and his visible eyebrow raises.

"You are serious about this," he says, more an offhand remark than a question or a challenge. The lack of hostility brings Raoul his own smile, and he shrugs, keeping his gaze fixed on the coachmen moving back and forth from the luggage cart.

"We've come this far," he answers, indirectly. Raoul reaches down to adjust the cuffs of his sleeves absently, anything to occupy his hands, not content to hang idly at his sides and wait. Of course he is serious about this. Erik is the one having second thoughts. He can sense that without even asking the Phantom, it is all in the air around him. Perhaps it is the sound of the busy streets, people everywhere, some staring, some trying not to, some not even aware of the two gentlemen standing beside the street. Perhaps it is the gray start of daylight on the even grayer sight of Erik's skin.

Perhaps the Phantom is also wondering if he has changed.

The thought it strange when it first strikes Raoul in the very back of his mind, but the unexpected events of the night before, however violent and savage an act from Erik, seem to have broken the guilty barrier between them. Erik is more open now, than he has been before. His guard is still up. It may always be there, like the iron gate that sliced into the river of his underground world, but Erik will still open as much as he needs to.

The Phantom enjoys putting Raoul into his place, keeping him under a certain level, under himself, and the younger man outwardly hates him for it. No man should have such a hold over the son of a Count, especially an artist over his patron. It may change in time, when Erik truly begins to trust, but until that time Raoul can only hope that the world does not detect the skeletons hidden beneath their masks.

And yet, after being the youngest of four children, and the 'little brother' of one of Paris' honored figures, it does not bother Raoul as it should. He has not been handled like this before, this heavy handed, hard treatment, this dominance - such physical control, harsh words, the scolding of the child he is. Erik knows how to cut him straight to the quick, and he does so when it so pleases him. Raoul cannot understand why is gives Erik such pleasure, to hurt so, but he can only attempt to stay out of Erik's way.

What he feels for Erik is not fear, but fascination. The danger Erik presents him with, the idle threats he is far too attached to carry out, the bitterness directed in almost every word he speaks to his old rival all carry the same undertone. He is protective of Raoul, and when the boy takes the safety around him for granted, Erik's eyes are always his shadow, watching and remembering every face to cross their path, every glance in the Vicomte's direction. He seldom acts on it, and it is often times so invisible Raoul barely notices it, but he knows it is there. He can feel it.

Erik stands behind the coach, silent, and his eyes still follow those forms of what Raoul can only see to be faceless morning walkers. It is so strange to see Erik in this daylight. He is standing amongst it, beneath it, and it runs off of his features, but he is not a part of it. He is alien to the day, and in this pale morning light the Phantom is ashen, and ageless. Raoul wants to approach him, and maybe stand beside him, but he finds he lacks the courage.

Erik's eyes flick up to Raoul as the young man nears him, and he unfolds his hands from behind his back in attention. Raoul stops short several paces, and his lips part in a small smile. A peace offering.

"I want to apologize," he says, evenly. "For doubting you. I do trust you."

"No need to apologize," Erik replies, inhaling deeply and exhaling softly through his nose. He tilts his head back and squints at the sky, even as the clouds begin to unleash the full wrath of the sun. He seems paler by the moment. "Everyone doubts what they fear."

His words are so smoothly spoken, not plagued by the same torment Raoul felt stab through him only the entire night, and he feels it again. Erik does not rid so easily of bitterness, but he hides it well. Raoul's fingers curl and uncurl at his sides, and they thankfully find his pockets. "I don't fear you," he says.

"Might I ask why not?" Erik speaks up, suddenly, and cocks his head with real interest. Raoul finds he likes that, especially when the brows of the Phantom crease in a frown. "What is not to fear?"

Raoul does not look at him, but he waits for the driver to open the cab door. Erik's frown deepens, impatiently, and Raoul keeps a wide smile for himself. He has piqued Erik's curiosity, and wants to keep the answers from him as long as possible, if not to just see the look on the older man's face. He turns to sit on the black leather seats, and waits for Erik to join him. The Phantom slowly steps in, and follows gracefully in turn, moving his coattails from his seat and crossing his leg over his knee again.

"I don't think you mean to hurt the things you end up hurting," Raoul finally murmurs, and the expression falls from the white face. Erik is taken aback and failing miserably at trying not to show it. He looks away, a struggle to keep his careless countenance, but it is clear he feels penetrated. Raoul settles back in his seat, and he rests an arm against the window, leaning his chin on the black clad forearm. Blue eyes catch the thin light. "But you always do."


	17. 17

**17**

The house is bigger than it was in the photograph: spacious rooms and high ceilings with crystal chandeliers and two long staircases leading to the second story. The windows are almost the height of the walls, and they let the sun filter in and spill over the furniture and wooden floors. Raoul of course has requested heavy drapes to be hung over their length, should Erik need them. He is accustomed to working in the darkness.

He follows Erik about the big house as the artist explores his new playground. He seems pleased, moving about smiling and unsmiling, and running his hands over the furniture and stair rails, smooth wood beneath his bare fingers.

"You'll have two weeks to prepare for your first presentation," Raoul explains to him, as they come into the wide dining room. The double doors close behind them with a soft click, and Erik stands at the head of a long plain dining table, and stops before it to survey the room. He does not seem to have an ear for the boy just yet. "From then on, if your work is a success we will book for concerts in Venice, Florence... Arles, New York... wherever we see fit to have you heard." Erik looks at him, as if for the first time noticing him, and his eyes linger on Raoul's face. He says nothing, and the Vicomte smiles, slow and confident. He nods to the doors that lead to the next room, stretching a hand to them in silent gesture.

Erik frowns, and hesitates, but resigns to follow his patron's direction.

Sitting alone in an otherwise sparsely furnished room, locked away from the blare of the afternoon sun, is a polished black piano forte. Erik's breath has caught in his throat, and he fixes a stare of undisguised wonder and fascination. Raoul watches the older man stands in awe before it. Perhaps it is not the instrument itself, a simple display of material possession and the power of a Comte's son, but the meaning behind it. When was the last time Erik was given anything, save disgust, and fear, that he did not have to steal?

He is frozen, as if suspicious of approaching the piano on a feral, instinctive level. Raoul steps around him carefully, and pats him on the shoulder. His fingers, still gloved black and invisible as they trail down the length of Erik's arm as he passes, beckon the other man to follow. The Phantom takes silent, hesitant steps forward, but will not touch it. Erik's hands twitch at his sides, an impatient longing. Finally, like a rider reuniting with his horse, the hands fall onto the surface, black and shining and shadowed in glory.

His sharp features are bending to a smile, and Erik's eyes turn a dark blue and glitter in the dim light. Years of sophistication are falling with unmitigated joy as he feels the polished black and attempts to contain his excitement. This is perhaps the rarest sight Raoul may ever witness, and he smiles as well, coming to standing some feet away from Erik.

"It's not your organ," Raoul says. "Transportation was made far too difficult. And I didn't think you would want anyone discovering what you left behind."

"Magnificent," Erik breathes, quietly, and it is a note or so up from the usual dull disinterest. He tentatively walks around it, to the black bench, and gently moves his coattails to lower himself onto the seat. He is so careful not to disturb the instrument it seems, and after he releases the lid his fingers fall home to the keys, only touching their surfaces and not pressing down. Raoul smiles more inwardly than out. The pale and stoic features are slowly moving from their stone carving, and there is almost a childlike gleam in the Phantom's eyes, a loving sense of belonging as he tests each note in turn.

Raoul is glad of it – for the first time, Erik seems not a Phantom with his machine, but a man with a passion, who can know joy like no other may know it. The Vicomte leaves his artist to work the canvas. He stops at the door, and leans on it briefly to observe a moment more. Erik's attention is entirely consumed, and he is a portrait of a composer, back straight, legs bent in their long, graceful angles, fingers splayed expertly over the white contrasting keys, and chin up. There is nowhere else Erik was born to be than here.

"Now," Raoul whispers, so quiet Erik would not have heard if he was listening. "Make something wonderful."


	18. 18

**Authors Note:** This would be the 'get out of plot free' card... if I were getting out of the plot. But I'm not. This is make-sense-later!sex. Sorry if it's somewhat unexpected. Enjoy : )

* * *

**18**

Since their arrival Erik plays long into the nights, and despite the sound of his hands ripping brilliant chaos from the streaming notes that pour from his fingertips Raoul is able to sleep. He has always been a deep sleeper, and it is good to hear another body in the house. Somehow it thins the darkness, as he lies on his back, stretched in a coma repose with the blankets draped over the middle of his torso, and his head sunk into the soft pillow.

Raoul lingers on the edge of sleep and dream, and the rain patters with the music outside his window. When the music begins to die his eyes open, involuntarily, and his brow creases in the darkness. There should be the sound of footsteps moving up the staircase if Erik is finished for the night, but the enormous house is silent, with only the continuous echo of the raindrops hitting the window glass to break it.

He does not sit up, but instead leans back into the mattress and tries to listen for the sound of movement in the floor below. Still nothing.

Without warning, and yet without the shock of quick transition and suddenness, there is a weight atop him, foreign and crushing. Raoul gasps, because he did not hear it enter or feel it before, and he finds himself beneath Erik's cold, lean body with the other man's face buried in the crook of his neck. Raoul turns his face into the invading touch, and his cheek is pressed gently into clean dark hair. Erik is breathing hard, and his clothing is heavy, scratching through the thin material of Raoul's white nightshirt. The boy reaches up with his left hand, and his fingers do not brush the smooth lines of a porcelain mask, but the twists and turns of disfigured flesh.

"What are you doing?" Raoul whispers, dryly, hardly able to find his voice in the hollow depth of his own chest. His eyes follow the ceiling and he draws in a sharp breath as Erik's lips move along his neck, beneath his chin, but he does not answer. "Why are you here?"

"I need you," three simple words, spoken rough and hungrily, and it is the only response Raoul is allowed, muffled into his hair and spilled hot onto his scalp. It sends a sharp tingle over him, and pricks the hair on his arms and neck to rise. Only the thin blanket separates their bodies, and Raoul watches in helpless darkness as Erik's hands begin to tug at it. "I've needed you all this time," it is practically a growl, and Raoul cannot piece this together and make sense of it.

"You –" he swallows hard, and his mouth his dry, lips swollen and tingeing dark pink. "You told me –- I thought you didn't want-" Raoul gasps again, because Erik is hard and pressing into the dip beside his own groin, needing. "-want me-" the words barely leave his lips before Erik has taken them into his mouth, and kisses him, hungry and pulling at his bottom lip the way he knows makes Raoul rigid. The boy quails away from Erik's hips, and he squirms when the other man's tongue slides over his own. They break away, and Raoul is flushed. "...you said you didn't want this."

Erik shushes him, so quietly, and so gently that it is impossible for Raoul to continue his protests. The other man is so passive that Raoul is ashamed for protesting, and he forces his body to relax into the mattress as the Phantom's cold hands brush damp hair from his dithered brow. His lids close sleepily when Erik kisses his face again, murmuring things Raoul cannot understand, they are so hushed.

He does not entirely mind this, feeling the new warmth of Erik's body over his, sheltering him from the darkness, lips moving over his cheekbone, his eyelashes, the indention of his temple. It is all such a comfort that he hardly feels the cold hands move southerly and soundlessly beneath his nightshirt, over the smooth torso, soft like baby skin and velvet as it quails from icy fingers. Erik's hands are always cold as living death, though racing through his veins is perhaps the hottest blood of all. It comes as heat through his clothing, from his thighs and especially the junction of his hips, heat seeping and searing into Raoul and making him squirm away from the cold hands.

He realizes that his nightshirt is gone, discarded somewhere in the dark. He is naked save for a snug pair of black breeches, and he shivers as Erik comes to replace the lost warmth. Raoul's eyes are open, but he cannot see Erik's face. Lips press softly to his, tenderly, and over the corner of his mouth. Raoul murmurs, wordlessly, and the cold hands turn warm, then hot as one of them travels over his belly to the inside of his breeches. He hisses at the sensation, and shakes his head, no, but Raoul knows that he cannot win this.

"I don't..." he only manages two words, and moves his face into the pillow, straining, closing his eyes. Raoul does not look at what Erik does to him, stirring him to reluctant life. "Wait..." he doesn't want to. They have done this twice, and there is still a good chance of pain, especially since it is clear that Erik has come unprepared. "I don't think I can-"

"Please," Erik breathes, rough and heavy, and it tumbles from his lips with his hot breath spilling over Raoul's temple, and into his hair, followed by a hard kiss to the side of his face. "Don't turn away from me," he says, and for some reason that Raoul cannot find, the Phantom's voice is croaking brokenly, rained with dismay and inhuman sadness. "Everything beautiful turns away from me, but you."

He cannot deny Erik, and he knows it, but it still hurts. Raoul covers his face with a hand, and swallows a short sob, teeth clenching as Erik presses another kiss to his throat. He has never been so tender, and so sorrowful. It is like that dreadful morning again. Raoul still wakes up to blood. Hands pull at his breeches, short quick movements, and Raoul keeps the heels of his hands pressed to his shut eyes, and silently shakes his head over and over.

"You'll love me," Erik tells him, from somewhere, and a thigh comes between his knees, spreading them neatly one at a time. Raoul's bottom lip trembles and he says nothing, letting his legs fall open, tense, but resigned. Another kiss, to his face, and Raoul's eyes snap open with a single forceful tug at the buttons of his breeches. "I promise by the end of this you will love me. I'll make you love me."

"No," Raoul tries, but his voice is no longer in his control. "I do love you." It no longer matters, these words he chokes out in desperation to avoid the alien feel of guilty pleasure. Erik's hands cup his hips, and he feels pressure on one of his side, coaxing him to move.

"Turn over," Erik orders him, and even as Raoul obeys the other man's guiding hands as they gently roll him over onto his belly he tries to tell Erik what will make him stop, before he goes too far to turn back. He turns over obediently, and Erik has not heard a word of his, but Raoul has not the will to refuse what Erik has pleaded for. He can only wait now, and closes his eyes tight when he feels Erik's warm fingers slip between the waistband and his skin, sliding his breeches down his hips.

Erik stretches out over his body, traveling across the length of his back until his chest rests on Raoul's shoulders and his mouth lingers beside his cheek. The boy bites his bottom lip when he feels the shift of Erik's own hips, hands working. The other man pushes in and it hurts, as he suspected it would, but he stifles a cry anyway. He can only contain it for so long, twisting his hands into the sheets beneath him and burying his face into the pillow as the friction of slow, rhythmic thrusts begins.

It hurts, but Raoul does not want to make a single sound as he is invaded, penetrated so intimately, nothing to upset Erik, because he will do anything to rip the sorrow from the other man's eyes. He can't see him, but he remembers the expression the Phantom wears when he is inside – it is more than ecstasy, but a state of being in a place so beautiful he could only ever want more of it. The sounds he makes, the parted lips and shallow breaths, the creased, perspiring brow when he realizes he cannot keep such beauty without going into violent thrusts.

Then the pain begins, and it is never enough. Raoul's erection presses agonizingly into his abdomen, and blood rushes, that familiar desire for submission tugs at parts of him and he moans, loudly, but Erik does not hear. Before the boy is even halfway to release Erik goes entirely rigid, and he cries out sharply. White splatters on the insides of Raoul's thighs and over the sheet, and the boy wonders if there is blood. He keeps back sporadic sobs, and holds perfectly still as Erik pulls all the way out of him. Raoul is like the dead and does not move, hands by his head on the pillow, eyes to the ceiling and lips parted.

Slowly he rolls over again, eyes blank and fixed on Erik. The other man is regarding him in silent resentment, and he moves to sit on the edge of the bed. Raoul hates this. He has been battered into, and used, and lies unsatisfied in the soiled sheets, but he only wants Erik beside him. That is enough. It is all that will bring him sleep, make him forget the pain he is caused, but Erik is like a statue, and stares only forward.

"My dried-out conscience?" Raoul looks suddenly at Erik. The mask is on again, but Erik is still turned away from him. "Is that why you have chosen to desert me?"

"What?" Raoul scowls, deeply, and pulls back. Erik is glaring at him, murderous and glittering with unshed tears, but he will say nothing to let Raoul know what he is speaking of.

"A man can change," he insists, hard and indignant, and a tremor offsets the impenetrable calm. The dying light is cold, and catches the glass of hot tears again. "I have changed. I changed for you."

"Then why are there three dead men in our tracks!" Raoul bellows words he does not know, and shakes his head hard, trying to trace them to a memory, but none will come. He rubs his eyes, and blinks rapidly, hardly able to see. Three dead men? "Erik," Raoul says, sharply, and the other man whips his head around to face another glare. "What are you--?"

"I wrote it for you," Erik spits, and his voice grows louder, and hoarse. "I wrote it for you!"

There is no more pain when Raoul opens his eyes, but his bed is empty, and the only wetness around him is his own cold sweat. His skin soaks through his shirt, and his bed clothes still hold his body. He is alone in the darkness of his room. Raoul shivers from the cold, and he pulls the blankets higher, drawing in a shaky breath and pressing his knees together. No pain, only dreams. Horrible dreams.

The piano is still filtering softly up the winding staircase, and Raoul sits up in bed, finding a robe and going to check on Erik. As he suspected, the other man sits at his new piano with candles lit and paper strewn before him with an abandoned pen. His head is bent, and his hands move over the keys to produce an eerie melody, but he is still dressed, and is as Raoul left him after dinner. Raoul exhales, hard, and rubs his eyes again, wearily.

Erik hears this, and stops playing. He turns halfway to look behind him, and when he sees Raoul's disheveled condition he frowns, somewhat concerned. Erik tilts his head, studying the boys appearance carefully. "Are you all right?"

Raoul shakes his head, and laughs, once, dismissing. He runs both hands through his hair to smooth it back. "Yes, I'm..." he breathes in again, and tries to smile. It will not come to his dry lips. "Nightmares. Nothing else."

Erik frowns, deeper, and he makes the effort of turning more on the bench, so his long legs are not trapped beneath the piano. After a moment, he offers, "Would you like me to stop for tonight?"

"No," Raoul says, "Please, continue." A half-hearted smile, and he turns away again. He is satisfied now that it was only a dream, that Erik is not as desperate and mad as he appeared, and that it was simply the paranoia of his own mind that brought on such disturbance. He pauses on the stair before going up. "Only nightmares."

Erik watches him leave. Part of him is curious of the Vicomte's behavior, but he ignores it, and goes back to sit at the piano, continuing his play. A gentle melody he makes, taking a different direction in the ferocity of his music. Secretly, the Phantom knows why the Vicomte is tormented by nightmares, and as he sits in the darkness he wishes he was not the reason.


	19. 19

**19 **

Since the dream it has been somewhat awkward to be around Erik, and so Raoul only sees him when they sit at the few breakfasts the Phantom actually attends. Christine, back in the days when the legacy first began, once told Raoul that Erik will go long stretches of time with no sleep, or nourishment, only playing and perfecting his pieces. While he works day and night Raoul leaves him to himself, and performs the even more daunting task of setting their social connections. Being the Vicomte de Chagny, the moment he set foot in London he was flooded with invitations to a myriad of parties and gatherings, and concert halls to host his artist.

He has not asked Erik to make any appearances yet, but the inevitability of it all hangs like a distant cloud between them.

Tonight is the dinner with Colonel Rochester, the owner of the Lanceston Royal's concert hall. He has dined with the colonel and his wife twice this week, and they are excited to see what the mysterious composer has in store.

Raoul collects his gloves, and slips them over his long-fingered hands, waiting by the double doors as Erik plays on. The composer hardly even notices his change in attire, or even the fact that he is present, but nevertheless Raoul clears his throat, and extends the invitation one last time before turning to leave.

"I'm going," he says. "Would you like to join me? They have all been requesting to meet you." Erik only shakes his head once without looking up. His face is tight, brow creases and eyes half lidded and narrowed to the keys. "I have called the staff back for tonight, to make you dinner - when you wish them to go, only say the word. I told them how consumed you are in your work."

A slight inclination of the dark head, and the playing stops. "You mentioned I would have an orchestra," Erik's voice comes as somewhat of a surprise and it turns Raoul back into the room. Pale eyes fall on him, dull, even disinterested. "There is one week until the performance."

"Would you like to arrange an interview with them?"

"No," It is almost spoken too quickly, and Erik seems briefly ashamed for snapping at the boy. As always, he manages to almost hide it. "But if it is at all possible, I would like to see this delivered to them tomorrow. It will take their utmost attention."

Raoul takes his hat in his hands, and spins it idly over one fist. He nods, slowly. "...I have been meaning to ask you, perhaps I waited too late...but do you want your work circulating around for all to hear? It seems you are... very personally connected with your creations."

Erik snorts. "It doesn't matter," he says, dully. "It is hardly my best." Raoul fights a smile, but it flees when Erik flicks a glance his way again. The deadened look in the eyes sends a chill over the Vicomte, and he tries to shake it off.

"Of course, well," he recovers, quickly. "I'm due on the hour. Goodnight."

Erik is silent behind him, and Raoul makes it out of the room. He does not expect a reply, so it is a surprise when he hears the slightly under-toned "goodnight" from the playing room.


	20. 20

**20**

"Where is he?" One of the thin-necked wives of the gentlemen crowding the hallway pipes up in Raoul's direction, with a bright smile on her tiny pale face. "Will he hide out forever? He will miss the performance!"

"I assure you, Madame; Monsieur Erik will not miss this for the world. He prefers to be alone while he works," Raoul smiles politely - perhaps too politely - and several of the young women subtly remove their delicate, decorated fans and begin to beat away at the air.

"Well I want to meet him," An older woman says, in a husky voice, a pair of full lips curling into a thin, sultry smile. "I have been told he is exceedingly handsome. Is this true, M. le Vicomte?" Raoul feels his face heat up, and just knows that he is bright red, but thankfully the man beside her rolls his eyes, and intervenes, coughing loudly on the thick brown cigar he balances between his fingers.

"Really darling," he clears his throat, and the woman flicks a cold gaze in her husband's direction. He only gives Raoul a long suffering regard, and the young Vicomte smiles wide in return, showing all of his white teeth. The fans around them pick up speed. "Tell me, M. le Vicomte, is your artist known in Paris? I've never heard of him."

Insides clench beneath his skin and Raoul feels ill, suddenly. He forces the nausea down, and makes a quick recovery. "Somewhat, in Paris. M. Erik is a very private man, you see, he has only recently agreed to let his work out into the world."

A little girl at her mothers side, not even eight and dolled to perfection, bounces through the crowd and stands before Raoul with unabashed, innocent excitement gleaming in the large, round green eyes. Her mother immediately pulls her back by the hand, and scolds her.

"Eleanor!"

"I saw him!" she chirps, ignoring her mothers hold. "He wears a white mask on half of his face. Why does he wear a white mask?"

A moment passes, and Raoul realizes that he is frozen, regarding this girl with a completely blank countenance and having nothing to respond with. The little girl is watching him, waiting for an answer, and it seems the entire cluster of ladies and gentlemen are holding their breath, waiting for him to say. He does not know how to reply, but the mother of the little girl, a cold and regal woman, firmly places a long-fingered hand on her girls head.

"Eleanor, do not be rude," she snaps, but when her eyes fall on Raoul again her thin brows arch. "A mask? What reason would a composer have to wear a mask?" Forty pairs of eyes blink at him with unfeigned curiosity, all prying, all waiting, and Raoul does not let it linger any longer. He smiles again, and holds both hands up.

"Forgive me; it is not my place to say. If he chooses to, then it is his choice, not mine." The smile stretches, warmly, and with a good grace he begins to retreat. "I should be seeing him now. Please, ladies, gentlemen, enjoy this night." With a swift spin on his heel is off toward the filling auditorium. It is loud with murmuring voices, a roar of whispered speculation and footsteps, and he passes each aisle to reach the area behind the stage. It is dark, save for the heat of the overhead gaslights, and Raoul pushes through the side door of the right wing.

Erik's dark figure, still wrapped protectively in the length of his black cloak, is waiting behind the thick drawn curtain, eyes set in hard concentration. He leans against the wall, but not at all comfortably, and unnerved, wide eyes land on the boy when he enters. Raoul pauses in his step, and frowns concernedly at the other man.

"Is something wrong?" he asks, and the Phantom says nothing, but his eyes return unfocused to the floor at his feet. "Are you...?"

"I should have thought of this," Erik mutters, beneath his breath and so low Raoul can hardly hear. The shine of his black hair and the reflection on the white mask are all that catch the overhead light: the rest of him is tilted to shroud in shadow. It casts down beneath his eyes, making them look as hollow as skull sockets, and his mouth is a dark line under the white shape of a long nose. He looks up so the grotesque features melt away, and he turns to Raoul with wide eyes, blue and glinting with what almost seems to be a shallow fear. They reflect the red and black drapes, hollow and glasses. His lips tremble, slightly, and he stares at Raoul. "There are so many out there."

Raoul slowly shakes his head. "It's no different from your performance," he says, carefully, and steps to the other man. Erik's breath catches, and does not leave the gentle part in his dry lips. "That night," as if they need to be reminded of which night Raoul is referring to, as if they would forget. He will not speak the words 'Don Juan Triumphant', because perhaps that would be going too far, crossing a line, but he holds a hand out and tries to settle the other man. "That night your performance was flawless. You captivated... don't you remember? It was your work. You never faltered, never."

Erik still stares at him, face as white as snow. "Save once," he breathes. His head snaps toward the curtain again when he hears his name announced, and Raoul watches him swallow hard, the Adam's apple bobbing exaggeratedly in his throat.

"No, this is different. That night... you," Raoul shakes his head again, and his eyes drop almost shamefully to the floor. "You captured your audience."

"I had no fear that night," Erik says, quietly. "I had no more reason to fear. I intended to die."

"You have to go," Raoul whispers hardly, as the voices and applause begin to murmur down to wait. "They are announcing you. Erik, you have to go." The Phantom looks at Raoul again, and for a split second there is a plea, a plea for a reason not to step out before the world again. Raoul reaches out, and he helps Erik remove the heavy cloak, letting him shake it off, and folds it over his forearm, nodding to the curtain. "I will not ask you to come to dinner," he whispers. "I promise. Go."

Erik makes it out to the stage as the curtain sweeps to the side, and Raoul ducks out of sight. Before the lights it is almost impossible to see the faces of the audience, and Raoul can see Erik's confidence return. He sits at his instrument, with his slicked dark hair, white collar, black coat and gloves. Raoul hears the hush of the audience, the murmur of intrigue, and he travels back down the steps, and out the side door. Erik's music begins to echo throughout the hall, the high fortress ceilings, and the orchestra brings a new power to what Raoul has been hearing over the past weeks.

It is a haunting, fearful, hard melody, and it sends chills over the lengths of his arms, to his fingertips, and before plunging again into the deepest tones Erik and the orchestra pull it to rise again. Raoul sets gently into his seat, and cranes his neck back, closing his eyes to fully appreciate the sounds Erik has created. When he cannot see the literal scene of the concert, it is different. He returns to the lair, to the comfort and the darkness, the fear and the longing, and Raoul finds himself standing before a familiar painting.

The music softens. There are strings of low, gentle notes, periodical as heartbeats, quickening to a light stream of haunting evening. The notes become the glow of stars above the rooftops in Erik's painting, some glimmering, appearing, shooting as the dark hovers above a quiet yellow glow. A warm horizon.

A silent city. Dark rooftops. Glittering stars. The horizon, soft in the distance, and inviting. Perhaps these are the elements of the Phantom's dreams, not skulls and red and death. Raoul squeezes his eyes shut, harder, knowing what Erik will not allow himself to reach. Another change. The yellow horizon climbs with the swell of the music's intensity, and Raoul is brought forward into a swift sunrise.

The music ceases. Night falls.

Raoul opens his eyes. The world around him is deafeningly silent. Not a soul breathes, or moves. Raoul wonders if anyone was affected enough for even a reaction, as he looks around at the stationary expressions. They do not react, and it unnerves him. Erik is alone on that stage. Perhaps he awaits annihilation.

Then someone stands, and all at once the entire audience rises, roaring, applauding, whistling. The curtain falls. Raoul's smile spreads wide.


	21. 21

**21**

Vomit splatters into the gutter, an opaque fluid with a tinting reminder of the red wine that boiled in his sour stomach before the performance. Fortunately it misses the material of Erik's shirt and coat as it lurches up from his pit and hot over his scoured throat. Erik shudders at the taste, and with the heaves as they become dry, and he spits, pushing his mask a safer distance away so he does not soil it. He is on all fours, knees ground into the rain-slicked cobblestones, palms bare and raw, flat on the street as he lurches again, and again. The rain is drizzling in the dark sky above him, and it helps to wash it all away.

Erik shivers, watching the pale red liquid swirl down into drain through eyes blurred in forced tears, and he spits again, spitting and dragging in forceful breaths of air, hoping to God none have followed him outside the concert hall. The composers previous genius dissipates and diminishes with the rain water draining down the gutter, and he is the very image of grotesque. With his face uncovered, the equivalent of having it flayed and baring skull and raw muscle, collar unbuttoned and shirt soaked, wrinkled with sweat, dark head disheveled and hanging between two pointed sunken shoulders, Erik is entirely vulnerable. The mask is such a lovely illusion. If the audience, the same audience that roared with applause, were to see him now it would all fall apart.

Erik feels the touch of another on his shoulder, a hesitant brush of fingertips, and he stumbles forward to hide his face, palming a hand wet with grime over his cheek. He jerks away and pulls himself up to stand beside the wall, wary of the mess he has left, and the rain water, but he cannot turn around. He is entirely helpless.

"It's me," Raoul says, quickly, and his voice is a blessing that cools the rising fear and anger. He cranes his neck over his shoulder to confirm, and the Vicomte tentatively leans forward to hand him a handkerchief. Erik frowns at it. "It's all right," the younger man says. "Take it."

Erik despises this, being treated like an incapable infant or a horse too jittery and nervous to be properly addressed. Raoul means well, but he does not always understand. Erik exhales, and he reaches around to take the handkerchief, muttering a thank you, turning from Raoul to hide his face and wiping his mouth and chin.

The taste on his parched tongue is sour and repugnant, and he leans over to spit once more. With the other side of the soft cloth he blots the sweat on his face, and politely folds it over. Behind him, Raoul is holding his mask in both hands, gently, almost reverently, and he waits for Erik to turn around. The other man hesitates before speaking when he realizes why Raoul is so silent.

"Raoul," he says, softly. "My mask."

Perhaps it is not so wrong to surprise the boy every now and then with a civil word, and the use of his name. Raoul seems to change every time his named is used. Erik holds his hand out for the porcelain piece, and Raoul does not move.

"I've seen you like this," he reminds Erik, solemnly. The Phantom drops his eyes. "You can face me."

The sound following is laughter, bitter and stale, a grating crackle of the most spiteful disposition. "Would you believe me," he asked. "if I told you that is just not true?"

No response from behind him. Erik cannot turn around, but he can almost sense the look on the boy's face, and it softens him to a degree. He leans his cheek wearily into his hand, and turns slowly, still only halfway able to cover the disfigurement. Well enough, anyway. His eyes meet Raoul's, and the boy must be able to see exactly what it is Erik feels, as if it is written across his face.

The Vicomte is stricken with clear, undisguised pity. Erik resists a snort, and he averts his eyes, holding his hand out once more, palm up. "Please."

Raoul breathes out – almost a sigh to release some of the tight tension on the youthful face – and he finally resolves to give him back his mask. Erik takes it, and angles his body to fit it over his face, running fingers through his dark hair to smooth it back again.

Satisfied for now, he turns back to Raoul, and the younger man's brows raise timidly over his eyes. He is looking Erik over in pity and fear, seeming to take in every detail on his person. Erik has tried to clean himself up, not look so ragged, but the force of the vomiting has reddened the white of his eyes, floating them in tears, and sweat beads off his pale brow. His coat is still flailing open, shirt unbuttoned, collar lost. Pieces of dark hair, previously slicked back, begin to fall forward.

"Nerves?" Raoul asks, numbly. The earnest face of the boy brings Erik an uncomfortable, displaced feeling to his insides, as if he might vomit again. He glances to the side, ashamed. He cannot tell Raoul everything, and part of him wishes more than anything that he could.

"Mostly," he says, and tries to fix his collar with shaking fingers. He pauses before Raoul, and raises the visible eyebrow. "I suppose you have a dinner to attend. Goodnight."

"No, I –" Raoul stops when Erik turns to rake another gaze over his body. "...you're unwell... and I don't know if I am ready to face a crowd tonight. Come, walk with me to the carriage."

Erik frowns. So trusting, this young Vicomte, and too benevolent for his own good. However, Erik waits for him to catch stride, and together they walk in silence around the side of the concert hall, to avoid the crowd. When they make it to the carriage, Erik is the first to climb in. His side is tender, and gives a dull, damp ache through the black lapel. He keeps his arm close to compact his body, and sits cautiously down. Raoul follows.

"What did they think?" Erik asks when the carriage starts off, and the silence is too thick to continue comfortably. Raoul's face immediately lights up.

"Brilliant," he replies. "They thought you were brilliant. They can't stop talking about you."

Erik snorts, and turns his gaze back to the little window at his left. The streets of London are dark, and a gray mist hovers in a shallow cloud. Without looking at Raoul, he clarifies, "I meant what they thought about my mask."


	22. 22

**22**

"Are you hungry?" Raoul removes his heavy coat from his shoulders, and when the butler takes it from him hours of exhaustion instantly lift with it. Erik is not so fortunate, and he does his best to keep his face away from Raoul's line of vision. It is pale, as he can imagine, and slicked with a cold sweat. "If there is something you want before bed..."

Erik shakes his head. He is not hungry in the least, and could not be sicker to the pit of his stomach than he is at this moment. His belly stings, and the dull ache in his side has become a flaring, angry burn that is spreading to the underside of his arm and his fingertips. He can only do so much to control his voice, and keep it from exposing the pain that he feels. The beads of chilled perspiration on his brow and temple seem to have caught Raoul's attention, and so he lets his coat hang about him, and brushes past the boy on the way to the stairs.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes," Erik says, none too quickly and with a very tight voice. "Goodnight."

Raoul is still alone by the door, watching him with a silent, solemn concern. The Phantom takes his leave.

In the dark of his room he is strangely at home again, surrounded by the wonderfully concealing black, and soft candle light. Erik reluctantly lights the lamps, and with a ginger step he comes to the edge of his bed to peel his clothing off, coat, then the silk waistcoat. Beneath it all the white shirt is soaked in a dark red blood that oozes from the ripped stitches, as he suspected, and he closes his eyes, hissing softly. There are fresh bandages in the trunk beside his bed, and he removes the mask, reaching down to snap the wooden case open.

The mask is set reverently on the pillow top, and beside it is set the shirt. The smell of blood begins to rise into the room, and the pain thickens. Erik's breathing is heavier, and it is almost more difficult to fill his lungs, as he removes the fresh rolls of white cloth. Clenching his teeth hard, he begins to unwrap the old bandage from his ribs, and they are crusted to his skin with browning blood. An involuntary sigh escapes his lips. The wound is a simple slice in his side, made more likely by a rapier than a knife, clean and precise.

It has been stitched expertly up, but the force of his own sickness has busted several of them, and Erik is not certain if he can perform the feat again. He prods at it gently with his fingertips. Erik can feel his legs tremoring, and his fingers shake. The room seems to be getting colder.

"How long have you been hiding that from me?"

Erik whirls around and Raoul is standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest and the usually pleasant face set in an almost murderous scowl. It changes -- Erik cannot think why he is suddenly staring at him in this new, unrecognizable horror, until he realizes his mask is still on the pillow. Without thinking the Phantom makes a move too sudden for his fatigued body to handle, and he stumbles to his knees as he reaches out for the mask, torso strung across the bed and arm still out of reach.

There is an audible rip of the remaining stitches, and blood in long red fingers slides over his side. Raoul is beside him, again, like he always is, being the strong one. He can't stand the boy being the strong one, it was never that way before – or perhaps it was, and Erik, through self defense and unimaginable pride, could not even admit it to himself.

"I've seen it," Raoul snaps, as Erik leans exhausted against the edge of the mattress with his cheek pressed into the sheets. "Don't kill yourself trying to hide it."

Through the corner of his eye he can see the Vicomte's expression rotate from annoyance to poorly disguised horror. No, he had not seen it before this – it is a new scar on the already twisted flesh, stitched and leading from his temple and curving just below the hideous ridge under his eye.

"Why are you here?" Erik growls, breathless, and forces a rise in his voice despite the sharp stabbing pain in his side when he inhales. "Can I not have even a moment's privacy!"

"I came because of this," Raoul thrusts his hand out before Erik's eyes and on it is a smear of fresh blood, still sticky. Erik screws his eyes shut and blocks out the light. "When you brushed past me, I thought it to be from the alley, until I made it to my room. What happened to you!" His voice lowers, slightly. "And your face, Erik, what of your face!"

"Leave me alone," Erik tries to lift himself onto the bed, and slaps at Raoul's hands when the boy tries to aid him. He hauls his weight onto the mattress, and rolls onto his back, staring blankly at the ceiling and letting out a breath he did not realize he had been holding. "Just leave me alone."

"I want to know what happened to you," Raoul says. "So you are going to tell me, or I will assume the worst, and have you taken back to Paris in chains." Erik smirks – the boy does not seem convinced of his own words, and it drags a rakish grin from the Phantom. He lets his head loll back onto the sheets, black hair spilling beneath it and a hand covering the disfigured side of his face absently.

"Turn me in?" Erik whispers, dryly. "You don't have it in you." The smirk fades. "You know I would kill you. That I would not think twice of it."

Raoul's expression is stone. "You don't have it in you," he says. "Not anymore."


	23. 23

**23**

There is tragedy in almost every manner of Erik; the way he sits in sullen anger, the dip of his head into his hands when he knows his lies cannot save him, and the crumble of his features, like a fallen monument, when he breaks into tears. Raoul has seen him and all of his faces, but now there is nothing written across the pale countenance. He stares blankly forward, with his torso curled and bruised, elbows on his knees. Raoul knows he has not been eating as he should, and so the bruises have hardly had an opportunity to heal. Erik will barely cooperate with his patron, and will not straighten to allow Raoul access to his entire torso. The bandage is sloppily applied.

"The day I was to leave Paris," Erik says, tonelessly. "I met a man in my home. At first I could not understand how he found me, and he said he had been following you since..." Erik will not speak of the day Raoul was belched up from the gutters of Paris, from the Hell he is still chained in, lingering and quiet. "He said he suspected that you might return here, and came to collect me for the police. He had a revolver, and so I thought it best to obey him. We stopped when we reached the alleys. I knew he meant to execute me, and so I struck. There was a struggle when he lost the gun. There was blood on both sides."

It is as simple as that. Erik's voice has not changed in the least. He does not feel for what he has done. Raoul closes his eyes and exhales softly. "Did you kill him?" A steel tone, not angry, even as the dark blue eyes narrow hatefully in his direction. "Is he dead?"

"There are few things in this world less cowardly than the use of a bullet," Erik snaps. "No, I did not kill him."

"But you hurt him," Raoul says, soft and resigned. "You are not one for mercy. Or compassion."

Erik lets the stare between them stand a few seconds longer, a stare void of all thought or regret, and he does not reply. The hollow gaze averts to some other point in the room, and the Vicomte is sure to give one last tug on the bandage, a hard jerk that forces a sharp intake of breath from the Phantom, and a whispered curse. Raoul seals the bandage, and he gathers the other rolls of cloth, setting them on the bed and brushing his hands off on his thighs.

"Now that you have nothing else to hide, see that it is treated regularly. You have a performance tomorrow night," Raoul stands, and he frowns. This earns a glance from Erik, a mirrored frown of puzzlement. "And for God's sake, eat something."

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten a square meal for days. Monsieur Grey had the cooks keep dinner hot. We're going to eat it, come," The Vicomte plays authority well, and he beckons Erik to rise. The Phantom is clearly uncertain. "I won't force you," he says. "But it would greatly ease my mind."

_Erik gingerly reaches over and picks up a fresh shirt from the mattress, and slides it over his head. He can follow, too. _


	24. 24

**24**

The Countess of Foxhall is on the prowl tonight, as the audience noisily stands in the auditorium to socialize before dinner. Raoul first noticed the dark-haired woman when she walked through the double doors, and her sharp brown eyes unmistakably fell immediately onto Erik. Since then she has been watching him, even as he stays by his patrons side, speaking quietly into his ear and nodding appropriately to those who approach him. He says very few words to anyone else, and from what Raoul can see it has only piqued her interest.

They stand side by side now, each holding a champagne glass and staying tastefully to the side. Erik is uncomfortable, but none seem to notice, save the Countess herself, who cannot keep her eyes from his long, lean form. He cannot help but return that unnerving gaze, and Erik sips his drink liberally. Raoul nears him again, close enough to speak quietly and privately.

"You're making eye contact," he says under his breath, the crystal rim lingering just at his pinkened lips. "Don't, it only implies interest." The boy's words are caught between them, an air of hesitation. He frowns lightly. "Unless you are interested. Then, by all means.."

Erik does not look at the Vicomte, but he shakes his head distantly. The eyes fall on him again and he flicks his gaze to the left, and finds Raoul. "I have known far too many like the Countess. They're dangerous."

"It would be in your interest to start making more appearances," Raoul says softly. "Less mystery about you."

Erik knows Raoul is right, but he hates the world, and having to show any face at all. He hates it. The Countess has her eye on him again, pretending to have interest in a conversation with some old gentleman. She is a woman not inexperienced, perhaps in her mid thirties, with dark features and a sleek frame, clad in dark green and black silks. There is a frighteningly calm air about her and her even regard, lashes brushing her chalky cheekbone every time she rakes her gaze up and down his body. He glances away, but from the corner of his eye he can see her approaching them. Raoul takes a sip of champagne and sets the glass back on the table.

Erik clears his throat and opens his mouth for cold, clipped conversation, but Raoul gives a single headshake.

"Let me," he says coolly. "Go to the washroom," a wry smile. "Don't worry, I doubt you'll be followed."

Erik is grateful, but he will not let it show on his face. He steps back, quietly, and cannot help the curl of a smirk across his mouth. The Countess' gaze is disrupted immediately by Raoul's gold head, as he steps directly into her path and smiles widely. It is like watching an actor step into the limelight – Erik is fairly impressed. The boy knows exactly what he is doing, and he plays the part so very well, with a debonair smile and blue eyes too confident to be brought down. He was born for this.

"Countess Elaine Winter," Raoul takes her delicate hand and kisses it so lightly his lips barely pass over the gloved skin. "Is it true? I've been told you're to be married again."

She frowns, and is on to him. It is clear she knows he is there to distract, but she herself is too polite to bring it to attention. Instead she takes on a smile of her own, condescending and allowing her to look twice as old and beautiful as she actually is. The smile is graceful, and she takes his offered arm, throwing Erik one last glance. "Viscount, the last time I saw you, you came up to Philippe's hip. How long has it been?"

Raoul pointedly ignores the reference to their age difference and arches one of those pale brows, glancing sidelong at Erik. "Who is the lucky bachelor, Countess?"

Erik does not stay to hear the rest. He heads for the washroom, and does not make eye contact. There are far too many people around him, and though he appreciates the Vicomte's effort he does not feel comfortable facing them alone. All eyes fall on his mask as he passes them, women subtly flatten hands to their breasts, and the men frown, and try to hide their curiosity by taking far too much interest in their brandies.

The washroom is at the far end of the sparsely furnished hallway, and when he turns into it the room is empty. The high mirrors reflect only him, and he approaches them slowly. They stretch his form grotesque and tall, and he tries to ignore their presence, stepping up to the basin and glancing over his shoulder before removing his mask. He splashes cool water over his face, and pats it down, blotting quickly with a towel. Another moment and it is safely back on his face, fitted beneath the dark hairline and conforming perfectly to the curve of his cheekbone.

Erik stares into the mirror at this face, and realizes it is one he hardly recognizes. He has always done his best to perform as a gentleman despite his shortcomings, but this transformation Raoul has pulled him into is nothing short of magnificent. Everything about him appears the same, he still holds himself the same, still stares into the mirror wonders what his face might look like if it were whole – the difference is, he surmises, that it does not show on the outside. Not anymore. Barely a week in the center of attention and already he has hollowed himself out, and void his face of all expression.

Erik smoothes his hair back, absently, and reaches from wrist to wrist to fix the cuff links. His brow furrows at the face staring back at him – his collar and tie have loosened, and wind about his throat unevenly.

"If I didn't know better, I would have thought you were avoiding me."

Erik's eyes flick to her reflection in the glass, and it seems the Countess of Foxhall has escaped Raoul's social grasp. She catches the surprise that had flared in the whites of his eyes, and a long smile starts from one corner of her parted lips and ends at the other. Erik clears his throat and his fingers work deliberately and quickly at his cuffs. He keeps his gaze fixed on his own reflection.

"And how do you know better?" he asks, nonchalantly, and the frost of his tone only encourages her. She leans into the wall, green satin pooling around her legs and feet, the black silk of her bodice pushing up against perfectly rounded cleavage.

"Have you been to London before?" she asks him.

"Madame," he replies, evenly. "Before even had learned to walk I had crossed the continent." It is probably even true.

"I have never seen you before," the Countess begins to approach him, and Erik feels his shoulders tense up. The dark haired woman stands beside him in the mirror, and stares into it with him, eyes flicking from his face, to his mask, and down to the rest of him. "But I suppose it is a such an enormous world. How long will you be staying in London?"

"That I do not know," Erik's words are clipped, and it is because his frustration with this sticky little tart is mounting. She is far too close to him, and her gloved hand creeps up to rest on the crook of his shoulder, fingertips stroking the fabric. Erik reaches up to adjust his collar and tie, and the fingers press harder into his shoulder. She guides him around to face her.

"Let me," she says gently, and Erik is paranoid of letting her hands so close to his face. Her eyes have been fixed on his mask since they first laid on him, an almost hungry fascination, and his chest is tight with tension. Erik exhales softly through his nose and nods, slowly, allowing her to play with the collar. A familiar deadly calm settles about him when her fingers brush the cold flesh of his throat, a complacency of trust to let his own instincts deal with her should the worst happen, instead of his conscience. More than that, Erik knows that should he be violated those same instincts are hardly controllable, and the price will be heavy for them both.

"There," but her voice is hushed with a certain note of kindness, even if paired with untrustworthy motive, and she does not make for the mask. The Countess' fingers give his collar one last pull, and gently tuck remaining material snugly against his neck. Erik represses a shiver. "There. These things are complicated." She removes her hands but does not take a step back, and the depthless black eyes are on his face again, studying each rise of bone and of course, the edge of the mask. She frowns at him, very softly, and as he feared a little hand comes up dangerously close beside the smooth white plane. Erik does not move a muscle.

"May I?" she asks, and when Erik says nothing her frown deepens. Perhaps he is not void of expression after all. Perhaps it is the frozen fear he hides so well that reflects in his eyes, or the baleful, murderous contempt... Erik feels his own ambivalence, but cannot always predict what his eyes will threaten. Instead of touching his mask he feels her fingers come to brush the rise of his cheekbone, and arch down to the soft piece of black hair tucked neatly behind his ear. So forward, this Countess!

_And where is Raoul? _So many warnings about this woman and the boy only lets her wander around where she pleases, and corner him into this little room. Oh, how he hates that boy.

"Monsieur Erik," she says, quietly. "That is all the name I've heard from you. What is your name?"

Erik had a mother, and she had a surname. It was the name of his faceless father, and before he died he must have carried it proudly. Erik does have a surname, not just Erik, or the Phantom, but it has been so long since it passed from his mothers lips that he cannot even remember what that name might have been. In these moments that pass, between himself and a beautiful woman of position and power, he feels himself shrinking. His unfurled darkness begins to fall, and second by second the Countess is making him feel more and more like an animal than a man. Erik sinks, and shrinks, and he recoils from her touch.

One step back and he bows gracefully, turning on his heel and remembering that he is a composer, with an art like death, and thus untouchable. It excites her, he can feel the tension spark behind him as he makes for the door.

"And will you be at dinner this time?" she asks him, coolly, as if there has been no exchange between them whatsoever. Erik pauses at the door, and tilts his head enough to glance over his shoulder. He can feel his mouth twisting into a low curve. "You seem to hide out, Monsieur Erik."

"Dinner," Erik's voice is like silk again. He bows. "Most definitely."


	25. 25

**25**

When Erik leaves the washroom he does not appear pleased in the very least—he even looks flustered, and stalks toward Raoul, pulling at his necktie to loosen it, seemingly frustrated at it alone – until the dark blue eyes land on Raoul, and his lips part in a half grimace. A little piece of silk is clearly not occupying the Phantom's mind. He quickly pushes past the people, and comes to stand beside Raoul, and the younger man watches him once again turn into naught but a shadow. It is so masterfully done, such a gradual change, that Raoul now understands how Erik was able to keep himself hidden in solitude for so many years. He is far too clever for human blindness.

"She followed –" Erik cuts himself off before he even begins, and almost instantly he closes off again, channeling forward not his vulnerability but a cold frustration as he fights with his necktie. Raoul glances about them, to see if they have caught any attention, and when he is satisfied moves in to stand before Erik, extricating the tight mess the Countess made of his tie.

The Phantom lifts his chin and with poorly masked chagrin allows Raoul to work. His neck, just below his square jaw line, is like the skin of a baby to the back of Raoul's fingers and his calloused knuckles. Erik always manages to shave so close and yet never scathe himself. More than that his usually cold skin is warm now, as if some part of him has only just began to live after years of dormancy.

"There," Raoul finishes with a quiet breath, and drops his gloved hands at his sides. "Are you all right?" Erik's eyes darken in this light, and Raoul nods, unwilling to push the topic any farther than Erik appears eager to discuss. "Good. To dinner?"

"Lead the way," Erik says. He tucks his gloves into his pocket and stands to the side. "You're always eager to do so."

Raoul feels himself bristle slightly but says nothing, and moves toward the dining hall. Erik does have reason to be irritated with him, after a run-in with that Countess of Foxhall. Raoul hardly knows her aside from various Paris parties, and dinner between her and Philippe. When he was a young boy it was rumored his brother was courting the widow, but it lasted only two weeks before Philippe was vehemently denying those rumors.

She was always said, by those closest to her, to be more predator than prey, and it is clear tonight she sees some sort of opportunity in Erik. Perhaps she can sense a vulnerability in the composers' cold exterior that not even Raoul can detect – he knows it to be there but only because he has spent long, dark hours observing it. Raoul has paid the price for knowing Erik so well, and it is a price he would not wish on even his worst enemy – though the Countess seems almost entirely invincible and as they pass her in the hallway Raoul feels himself draw closer to Erik.

At dinner, neither Raoul or Erik speak more than is absolutely necessary, even as they are the center of attention and discussion.


	26. 26

**26**

There is a window into the darkest of Erik's intentions, and through the smoky after-dinner chatter Raoul is grateful that he is the only one who may see it. It is so subtle – a flicker of dark blue, narrowly escaping the glow of candlelight and masterfully hidden behind a graceful bend of even darker lashes. Erik continues to return the stares of the Countess.

She is more cunning than she seems, the Countess, and she seems to think that she has the new composer exactly where she wants him to be. Raoul feels a grave doubt creep over him, from the base of his spine to the ends of his hair laying smooth and back from his face. Oh, how wrong she is! He presses his brandy glass to his temple and closes his eyes hard. The glances Erik slides her way are what may only be described as 'frightening'.

They are possessive stares, smoothed in interest and under-toned in unspeakable hate for a woman he does not even truly know. There is something unnerving about the way Erik looks at her.

This becomes even more apparent after dinner, a bitter attraction. Raoul notices that Erik has strayed farther from his side than he ever truly has, and he strays right to her side. Most bachelors taking a painfully blatant interest in the widows' money tend to follow her about like a lost puppy starving for a hand to feed it, and if that were the case with Erik Raoul would not be so uneasy. It is almost quite the opposite.

Erik lingers over her, at her side, behind her, around her, and his hands are folded confidently before him as they speak quietly. Raoul watches from a corner, with a glass of port that shallows by the second, and he chews on the swell of his bottom lip. This is ridiculous, and dangerous. Erik is hardly speaking, he is only watching her with dark glittering eyes. He is watching the curve of her lips, the twitch of nerve beneath her eyes when she looks up at him. The glint of white teeth when she bares a wide smile.

A thought lands in unexpected assault upon Raoul, and he allows himself another long swallow of wine, finishing the glass. He is losing Erik, to this woman. He wants her, because she is femininity. Erik's first true touch was by that of a man. It was a man, not a woman, who allowed him in, and loved him – and for a time, that was enough. The problem lies in that while Erik has touched love, he has still never touched a woman. A woman is naught but mystery to Erik, and it worries the Vicomte what may come of it.

He shakes his head. That is ridiculous, everything he has been rash enough to conjure in his own disillusioned mind is ridiculous. He knows himself that he cannot be trusted to judge, and therefore decides not to watch Erik any longer. The night is fast approaching an end, and there is always work to be done. The Vicomte holds his breath, and sets his glass down on the nearest tray, straightening his coat and approaching the two. Her eyes are the first to land on him. Erik takes a slow second place.

"Forgive me," he breathes, and Erik's brow arches. "It is late. I have decided to retire. Goodnight." He glances at Erik, to see if the other man follows.

The Composer and his Patron do not depart together this night. Raoul takes the long ride home alone.


	27. 27

**27**

When Raoul returns from the concert he is exhausted and does not know why, but it seems as if the blood that keeps his body a working machine has left his veins, and he can only walk numbly through the doors and offer Monsieur Grey a deadened half-smile. He cannot even feel it change on his face as his coat is peeled from his shoulders. Gloved hands run through his hair, and even through the delicate material he feels clammy skin beneath his fingers.

"Dinner, sir?" The butler hangs up his coat and Raoul only shakes his head.

"I couldn't stomach dinner tonight, Monsieur," he says, and the butler nods and silently makes his exit. The house is quiet, but the lamps in the dining room are still lit, and Raoul makes a slow entrance, hoping he finds who he is looking for. The sickening dread begins a steady dissolve as the sight washes over him – Erik is at the head of the long table at the end of the dining hall, alone. He makes hardly a sound when he eats, and his utensils do not even seem to touch the plate.

When he glances up at Raoul the Vicomte hopes his relief is not as obvious as he feels it to be.

"I was expecting you home much later," Raoul says softly, and claims the seat beside Erik. The Phantom sits back in his chair and sips his wine, watching the younger man with a silent regard. He sets it on the table, but his eyes do not leave the boys face. Raoul clears his throat. "We are due in Florence next. A train, the week after next."

Erik only nods in affirmation, and Raoul is glad that he is willing to travel. He was afraid of any attachments the other man might have made, or of some fear he will not admit. The Vicomte still cannot feel comfortable in such silence, and so he speaks again, things he wishes he could not say.

"The Countess," Erik's expression does not change. "She is intrigued by you. A genuine interest." The silence settles again, and it is more than Raoul can bear. He tries, and sits back quietly, but Erik is content to keep the air still and the silence heavy. Raoul finds himself staring at his hands, where they fidget at the seams running down the side of his pants. He cannot think what to say. "You are on the top of the world now, Erik," he says softly. Raoul glances at him, sidelong and full of dread. "You could have anyone you wanted."

A quiet chuckle from Erik's brooding shape, but no humor, and no smile on the pale, masked face. The sound stills, and he gently places his wine back on the table before coming to stand. "You're still so ignorant," he says.


	28. 28

A million apologies for the wait, and thanks so much for reading. Is it true we can't reply to our reviews anymore?

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**28**

He is ill, despite the stubborn promises stating otherwise during the ocean passage. Raoul has tried to soothe his lurching stomach but it will not stop its endless turning, and he has become incredibly sick. The motion of the train has certainly taken its part in his misery, but the fair amount of red wine he has consumed in the last half hour is more than likely the reason for his spinning head and nausea. It is a wonder to even himself how he is even managing to sit up straight. When his eyes open again he realizes that he actually is hardly sitting up straight, and that his neck is allowing his head to slump almost entirely to the side. He attempts to roll it back up, and the excruciating ache returns.

Erik is reading, and completely unaffected by Raoul's suffering. He had his share of wine as well, and the train itself has lurched more than once, and yet he is as steady as can be, calmly flicking his eyes every few seconds from one side of the page to the next. Raoul just watches, in misery, and can even feel his body become heavier and heavier as he involuntarily begins to fall slowly forward.

"I warned you," Erik says smoothly, dark and velvet. "It would only make you sick." Raoul rolls both bloodshot tearful eyes up to Erik's, and can manage but a small blink. "And drunk," the Phantom adds, ruefully.

"I'm not," Raoul mutters, but it is when he pulls his shaking body up into his seat again that he feels the rising bile. He swallows hard, and his swollen throat does its best to keep the contents of his stomach at bay. He swallows again, and hardly has the saliva to do so. It hurts. His ribs contract, and he shudders. "I'm a bit off. Nervous, I suppose." He attempts to sweep his hair from his forehead, but it sticks to the damp skin and a wave of nausea washes over him as the heat rises from his body. "Trains.."

The bucket in the corner is beginning to look like home to Raoul. He is sweating, and uncomfortable, and his head is swimming with the alcohol he meant to consume to save himself from this. Florence is still so far away. He turns his head, heavy as iron now, to the window. He turns his head to Erik, who has lost interest in his book and his regarding the boy with a sort of quiet, disgusted concern. More than likely a concern for the state of his shoes than whether or not the boy will live to see Florence.

And yet, as the seconds race by like lifetimes before him, hardly a glint in his darkening consciousness, Raoul finds himself lowering from the black velvet seats and onto the floor. He crawls without even ordering his body to do so, straight to the bucket, and curls over it. Somewhere in the corner Erik begins to rise from his seat, and it is all Raoul remembers before the cool darkness extinguishes the heat of his sickness.

He is calm, and settles into a dreamless peaceful darkness. A slow breath rises from his body. Another.

Reality rushes in like a blow to the head, and he is on his knees before the bucket in the corner of the cabin, gripping it with white-knuckled hands for dear life. His stomach thrusts into the underside of his chest and heaves again and again its contents up his throat. Pain rushes through him, as well as a very distant forgotten relief with the splatter of dull red wine and acid hitting the bottom of the bucket.

An arm is snaked securely around him, beneath his ribs as if to support them from falling out of his torso completely. It is a strong arm. The familiar feel of Erik behind him calms his violent spasms, and he finishes vomiting only several more dry heaves. There is nothing left, and yet Erik keeps his long hair away from his face. Thick, warm fingers stroke it back again and again, and Raoul shakily removes his handkerchief, wiping his mouth and curling back onto his heels to sit on the carpet. Erik is still behind him, and he lets his head drop back to the other man's shoulder to regard the poor, traumatized cabin attendant.

"Take this away, please," Raoul says in the best voice he can, despite his throat has been scoured by boiling red wine and vomit. "Bring some water."

"Are you quite all right, Monsieur le Vicomte?"

"I will be," Raoul breathes as the boy removes the bucket and tries not to scrunch his nose too much in disgust. "Thank you." Raoul is afraid that if he moves, everything will change. This moment they rest in will end in a matter of seconds, and Raoul wants to do all in his power to stay like this. Erik moves, and is back on his seat. His book, however, is left forgotten by his side.

Raoul can still feel those fingers in his hair, the arm around his belly. Such persistent ghosts of memory- he wonders if they will haunt him until he dies.


	29. 29

**Author's Note: **I don't like this one too much. Its just...necessary to keep the plot moving, but it is a little ..suspenseful? Exciting? CLIFF-HANGER-Y? Thanks so much you guys!

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**29**

Florence, in six long years, has hardly changed in the least. In Raoul's earliest memories there are paintings of the marvelous city, bathed in golden light with quiet streets frozen in a perfect image of serenity. He keeps his gaze to the carriage window, and with every building and street lantern passed he is reminded of those pieces. Watching it all pass by helps him to forget the burden of the six separate dinner invitations resting heavily in his breast pocket. Six of them, since they arrived in Italy alone, and all from the same source.

The Countess has invited the pair to her villa for a private dinner, and Raoul finds himself hardly wanting to continue breathing when he considers being hosted by the horrible woman yet again. His body sinks into the velvet seat cushions, as it always seemed to do when he was a boy, attending one of Philippe's opulent birthday celebrations. Being surrounded by rich guests and distant relatives twice his size was always more than intimidating, and the feeling strikes every time the Countess crosses his mind.

"Carriages make you ill as well?"

Raoul feels his face heat up and his eyes swell. He has turned a bright, bright red, but thankfully when he glances at the other man the artist's attention is anywhere but on his patron, and cannot see the mockery he has made of Raoul. Though it is doubtful he is truly oblivious to the boy's embarrassment.

"Oh," Raoul begins, a stammer, and clears his throat. "No… actually." Not every moving thing on this planet makes me sick, he thinks hotly to himself, and after a few moments realizes that Erik has no interest in him beyond having to handle another sick boy on his hands for hours to come. Should the phantom ever extend such kindness again Raoul will most certainly be surprised. That night he had been tender. Silent, and distant, but tender in his actions, and since then has only bothered to give stony expressions and monosyllabic responses.

"Is this your first time in Florence?" Raoul feels like a complete fool the moment the words leave his mouth and Erik turns to face him, hardly even aware of his presence. He regards the Vicomte as if he is considering the question, and finally gives his head a single shake. He crosses one long leg over the other and shifts his weight silently on the seat.

"It is not. I came here long ago, when I was a young man," Erik murmurs. His concentration, for some reason, is continually fixed on the little window beside him, but Raoul wonders just how long ago Erik was a young man. Age is lost on the Phantom's smooth face, and yet he no longer considers himself a young man. Raoul has always sensed the old soul still lingering there, however corrupt or long disfigured, and every time the thought enters him he feels more and more like the boy the Phantom loves to taunt and torment.

Raoul settles rather uncomfortably in his seat and absently smoothes the legs of his pants. "May I ask you a question?" Erik says nothing, does not even look at him, and so Raoul clears his throat and continues anyway. "…how…old are you, exactly?"

Erik's eyes fall directly on his face and the Phantom produces an unexpected, somewhat sardonic half-smile. His only visible brow raises beside the mask "I cannot tell you," a little half-shrug. "I suspect I am approaching fifty."

Childish curiosity comes over Raoul, and he moves to face Erik, draping his arm over the back of the seat and forcing himself not to lean in too far. "You don't know how old you are? When is your birthday?" Another blank stare. "How do you not know your birthday?"

"How do you know yours?"

Realization comes over Raoul, like a kick in the gut, and Erik watches with sick pleasure as guilt and embarrassment washes over the younger man's face. Raoul always remembered his birthday because his parents did, and his brother and sisters always went out of their way to throw enormous celebrations for him. He should have understood, but of course he did not care to.

The truth is that Erik stopped counting the passing of his years long ago. Perhaps it was when he came to know the gypsies that silly things such as the day he was born stopped returning to his memory. It had certainly stopped bringing him the joy it brought other children long before that. He might have reached his fiftieth year some time ago, and would not know it. When he was still very young he had decided there was nowhere in the world that he might find kindred, and so he made to live beneath their feet, to watch. Erik had sold his years for a secluded, dark life; and with them he sold the smell of fresh air, the sounds of a living world, and the warmth of daylight.

When Raoul turns to try and save the moment Erik is already gone. It is another place Raoul should never have tried to go, and he wishes he might have just kept his remarks to the weather. Erik never responds to idle talk, and at times it is for the best.

"The Countess will be waiting for us at the Villa," Raoul says through a long sigh. "She will be hosting your next performance in her gallery. She has also invited us… several times… to a private dinner beforehand."

Erik shifts, again, and stares straight ahead so that Raoul may only see the bone-white profile of the porcelain mask, and a cold, grey eye. "The Countess," is all he murmurs, and strokes his full bottom lip with his forefinger. This is a habit that always seems to catch Raoul's attention. He lived around Erik for nearly a year beneath the Opera House, and has learned most of the Phantom's movements and what they mean. Erik does not realize it, but he only touches his lips when he remembers what it is to be kissed: a luxury Raoul has long taken for granted.

The Phantom says nothing as he exits the carriage, and Raoul blinks himself out of his deep thought. He had not even realized that they had arrived at the villa, and carefully steps out of the open door. He settles beside it a moment, and watches Erik enter the double doors. The Phantom removes his hat in respect for the house keepers like any gentleman, despite the curious, wide-eyed stares. He is a gentleman, and it is terrifying. Erik can be his most frightening when he is merely imitating those who have shamed and disgraced him.

"Monsieur le Vicomte," the accent is poor, and the face to match is distinctly Italian. Raoul smiles politely at the man bowing deeply before him. "The Countess of Foxhall requests a word with you."

Raoul frowns. "She is here? Already?"

"Of course, Monsieur le Vicomte!" There is a mock in that giddy tone, and, clad in all black, he recognizes the Countess immediately as she approaches. A lace veil conceals most of her face, and her green parasol balances delicately on her shoulder. "You wonderful young man, you know I could not keep away." She holds out her hand, and Raoul reluctantly lays a gentle kiss on her white knuckles.

"Countess," he murmurs softly, and straightens.

"Oh come, Raoul. Formalities are wasted on old friends," she smiles, brilliantly. "Walk with me, we have much to discuss."

Raoul takes her offered arm, and tries to keep the conversation brief and light. "You mentioned in your letters that all the arrangements were made."

"Raoul, darling," she carries the tone of a scolding mother, and anger sparks inexplicably inside him. "He is too magnificent to be restricted to the piano."

"He loves it, Lady. He will not have it another way."

The Countess' face twists into a very wry, sardonic regard. "An orchestra Raoul," she says pointedly, stopping pace to face him. "A full orchestra! Think of the glory… Monsieur Erik would be known not as a mere performer-"

"He is unsurpassed in his skill, but he has always been credited as a composer," It takes Raoul a moment to hear the possessive, almost hostile note in his voice. The woman's eyes spark, and she steps closer to him, leaning in so she may whisper—the croon of a mother, with the hiss of a queen. "Imagine it, Raoul. The stage, and glorious back setting, a full orchestra—his back to the audience as he stands beside the conductor. Only then will the world know his glory!"

Raoul feels heat creep up from his collar and color his face, and bile begins to rise slowly in his throat. He gives his head a slow shake. When he speaks it is a nervous, dry attempt at words. "Perhaps he does not wish-" One of her cool hands lays itself upon his cheek, and interrupts him. She takes his face in her hands.

"Raoul, darling boy," she says. "There is not a soul in our time who does not wish to be known by the world."

"There is one," Raoul replies stiffly. "You cannot know him."

She withdraws her hands and narrows her eyes, carefully, studying his features as if she can look right through him. The Countess even steps closer, her nose is almost brushing his, her sweet breath hot on his face as she speaks. Florence breeze picks up loose strands of dark hair to frame her pale face. An audacious smile appears on her mouth. The smile of one knowing they are to step on dangerous soil. "What are you afraid of?" she whispers, and Raoul swallows hard, looking away quickly and fearing he just gave something away that was not his to give. "What is under that mask?"


	30. 30

I know ya'll are gonna just kill me for the length, but it was getting too long, and if I left the two bits together the transition would be very, very sloppy. Trust me! Just truuust me!

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**30**

Their first performance in Florence is not all that the Countess expected it to be. Erik had fought with the conductor, with the violin players, and even with his patron. Raoul had seen this coming from the very start of things, and no single person had taken the time to listen. He sits uncomfortably now, beside the Phantom in their private box, and can only wait in dread for the concert to finally come to an end.

"That man," Erik says quietly to Raoul, with keen, almost hateful eyes set on the conductor. "Does not know music. He carries my piece as if it is a plank of rotting wood. Do you hear it?" Raoul nods, solemnly, and Erik turns to look at him fully for the first time in nearly three weeks. "Of course you can. It is loud, it is produced as it is written, but my work cannot be felt, not by him, or these people."

Raoul sighs, carefully, and settles back into his seat. At least Erik is speaking now, and not developing some horrible, hideous plan on strangling each of the performers. "Not all men are born to create," he replies, and Erik does not respond. He also, in a fluid cat-like motion, moves back to his prior position and lets his chin rest on the back of his knuckles. He watches the stage without blinking. "It is said that the universal language lies in music, but that's not true. Some find meaning behind the notes, and worlds may change because of it. Others… they see noise, and so they produce noise, and all who witness can only hear noise. Music is a code only a select few can interpret, Erik. You've always known it."

"I hoped to change that," the Phantom murmurs. It is almost a confession. "I wished to change everything."


	31. 31

Hopefully this is more interesting. I'm trying to get these updates as fast as possible. Thanks everyone for keeping up with it! J

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**31**

"These gentlemen are throwing for us a wonderful dinner, all in honor of you," Raoul reminds Erik as they rush down the hallway, dignified but quickly-stepped, and make for the dining room. Raoul is half concentrating on not running into the decorated walls, and half concentrating on fixing his cufflinks. "And I know it's difficult, but that doesn't just mean be nice to them, it means be nice to their wives as well." They stop short at the double doors, and Raoul seizes Erik quickly by both wrists. Not long ago, a maneuver like this would have earned Raoul a week of starvation, and several beatings. He only remembers this after the bold action, however, and a distant fear begins to raise in the very back of his being.

"You have to promise me," he whispers, to the unreadable eyes. "That you will dismiss any comments about anything…offensive, careless or otherwise. Promise me."

Erik extricates Raoul's white fingers from his wrists, quite patiently considering the usual pattern of his temper, and takes them back to adjust his own cufflinks, and does so whilst regarding his patron is a heavy, steady silence. "Vicomte," he speaks softly, not at all condescending, but understanding, and unchanging eyes. Suddenly, he splits a smile. "I have always been a gentleman."

Raoul's mouth drops open to say something, anything, but no sound comes out and in only a matter of seconds he feels like a fool. Erik has the ability to make him look a fool, but not this time. This time Raoul knows what to expect from the man, and he is living proof that Erik can be so much less of a gentleman, and so much more of a monster. They go through the doors, and immediately applause erupts from the long table. Raoul cannot help but smile when he looks at Erik's surprised, white face.

"Apparently, the only one who did not enjoy your work was you," he murmurs, and makes toward his seat. The humor diverts Raoul's nervous tension only a moment, but when they sit down among the Counts and Countess', Knights and Ladies, it all settles back down in him, into a tight knot. Immediately he reaches for his glass of wine, and the Countess is first to respond, with a shrill giggle.

"Vicomte, you cannot be nervous. That is the composer's job," she sips her own wine, and all heads turn to face Raoul with equally blank smiles. "How frightening can it be to sit back in a box?"

"More so than you could ever imagine, Countess," Raoul replies, and smiles very tightly. Thankfully, the dinner seems to go smooth enough without anymore comments from the Countess. In fact she is hardly the problem tonight. It is the other ladies, the wives of the gentlemen of course, that cannot seem to keep their attentions away from Erik. The Phantom is polite, and listens, and is very good at pretending like no one in the room is staring at the fact that one half of his face is concealed.

Three hours into the long dinner, when the brandy has been passed out, the tight feeling that twists Raoul's stomach into knots begins to loosen a bit. Thus far they have dined socially without incident, and in just under an hour Raoul will be able to make up some vague excuse for he and his composer to leave the table. For the first time all night he slides back into his chair, and takes a long sip of the warm brandy. The drink settles everything. It curls in his stomach like a blanket of comfort, and he immediately feels every clenched joint and muscle in his body relax. He smiles, and for once, enjoys the company around him.

What he does not take into consideration is that while the brandy has made him considerably more comfortable with the people around him, the people around him are also considerably more comfortable than they were before. Things like tact, and privacy perhaps no longer have the energy to wave their flags at the most crucial of moments. All of this rushes into Raoul's senses the moment Lady Batterly, the wife of Lord Batterly (an retired composer himself, and now a patron of the arts), opens her mouth. She has been talking all night, but when he turns to look at her, he distinctly recognizes the expression on her face.

It is serious, and solemn, and reads that she is about to ask something incredibly personal.

"Monsieur Erik," she begins, and in a hazy moment of panic, Raoul wonders if it would be even worse to just get up and leave. He might have to drag Erik, because the Phantom is completely composed, and willing to hear any questions out. He has probably heard them all. "Please, do not consider me rude, or brutal for asking what I am about to ask."

"Madame, we all have our moments of brutality," Erik's words are smooth, and carry a smile with them. Raoul stares at him in complete awe. There is not a single threat in his eyes or his tone. Just irony. "I could hardly hold it against you."

Lady Batterly giggles, and folds her scarlet-gloved hands beneath her chin. "Very well then, I will just ask right out," she inhales deeply, obviously building some courage to face this mysterious man, and tries to smile. "Why must you drive the women you perform for so mad?"

"Darling, that is hardly tactful," Lord Batterly, a large man covered in white hair, who clearly cares about the bottom of his glass more than his wife's conduct.

"I am not certain I know what you are asking me," Erik replies, calmly.

"Your mask!" Lady Batterly nearly explodes, and sits upright in her seat. "This mystery you shroud yourself in. This is one of the first dinners you have attended since the world set their eyes on you as a brilliant new composer. Why do you keep yourself hidden? Why do you hide your face?"

Raoul resists the urge to let himself fall into the table before him. He closes his eyes and massages his temples. When he opens them again he can see the Countess in her corner of the table, alone, secluded from the rest of the party, but acquiring a devious smile when she sets her eyes on Raoul. She has known all along that she would be present when the secret of Erik's appearance was set loose.

Raoul sits up straight, and sets his glass down the table. He makes as if he is about to get up, and say goodnight, but the voice at his side his entirely lacking of hostility.

"I choose not to show my face before ladies and gentlemen, Madame," he tells her.

"And why is that?"

"Because," Erik leans in, an arm resting on the table and one on the arm of his chair, but his face mirrors the Countess: pure devious excitement. "It is hideous, Madame. It is a horrible, twisted form of flesh and scars." He goes back into his chair, and despite this confession, the ladies are almost even more aroused. They touch their throats and their chests and their foreheads, and tuck their arms at their sides to hide the goose bumps.

"And how did it ever become that way, Monsieur Erik?" It is the Countess, from the other side of the table. She holds her brandy glass just by her lips, and arches a dark brow. "Surely there is a story to tell." Erik returns the smile, however insincere, and the relaxing sensations brought on by the brandy begin to harden into a pounding headache for Raoul.

"Indeed, there is," When it becomes quite obvious that everyone, even the men, wish to hear the story Raoul once again finds himself facing panic. He hopes to the very pit of his soul that his face is not reflecting it. "It was a fire. A blaze that burned forever it seemed, before someone pulled me out of it. I lived. Just barely, but I lived."

All the faces are blank, and other than a few gasps from the ladies, it is heavy and silent. Raoul shrinks into his chair and covers his face with a hand for perhaps the tenth time this night.

"Dear Erik," Lady Batterly says, in a very hoarse whisper. "How did you ever survive?"

The Phantom's smile disappears, and with a white face, void of all expression, he glances ever so quietly to his side. Raoul senses the presence of forty eyes on him, and removes his hand to look over at Erik. They regard one another very quietly for what may just feel like the longest moments of Raoul's life. The silence disappears. The faces, curious and impatient, all disappear, and it is only the two of them.

--until a hand slides onto Raoul's shoulder, and grips it quite insincerely. Erik's eyes are still on him, but Raoul turns to face the table.

"It was the Vicomte, actually," Erik tells them, and releases Raoul. "In the days when we shared the same Opera House, it was hard to tell if we had a passion for the opera or a passion for simply hating one another." That seems to lighten the mood, but Erik is no longer smiling. He drapes on leg over the other, and leaves his drink deserted on the table. His forefinger comes to his bottom lip again, and he speaks as if he is a thousand miles away.

"The Vicomte and I both had magnificent plans for the jewel of Paris, and I suppose the more we feuded the more we came to realize that we only wanted the same thing for her. We wanted to protect her, and preserve her. We simply had our own methods, and our own," he pauses. "Our own… love… for the Opera. When disaster struck, I was trapped in the under-workings of the Opera House, and could not find my way out. When I did find a pathway out of that darkness, I did not take it, because I knew there were only flames above me. I knew I might die, and that if I did not die, my life would never be the same,'

"I did not want to live, even, because there was no predicting what lay before me. And then, in the darkness, as I lay there in pain and my own blood—he came for me," Erik is not smiling, and so neither is anyone else, so Raoul tries to laugh, once, and waves a dismissing hand. Erik makes no imitation, and regards Raoul quietly as the boy blushes furiosuly. "The Vicomte must have heard I had fallen through the floor boards, perhaps to the very opposite end of the whole world, and still he came for me." The Phantom sits a moment, blank, staring forward, and Raoul has to nudge his arm to snap him out of his silence. Erik comes to with the greatest of ease. His eyes fall expressionlessly on Lady Batterly. "That, my Lady, is why I am here today."

The table erupts into laughter again, when someone changes the subject to save the night, and Raoul gratefully hides back into his chair. Erik does not see it, or if he does he cannot seem to care that Raoul's face has turned a beet red, and he is at the moment suffocating himself through sheer humiliation.


	32. 32

**32**

"I've created a monster," Raoul paces back and forth, and wreck of nerves and mindless chatter while Erik sits quietly at the piano, testing out notes and jotting them down on the paper before him.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Vicomte, it is wholly unbecoming of you," The Phantom murmurs, and sets his pen down again to continue exploring the keys. Raoul has not bitten his nails since he was a boy, and the energy he is putting forth to not do so now could power a small locomotive. On the other hand, Erik is completely oblivious to Raoul's horrified discomfort at his opening up to the Ladies and Gentlemen of their new circle, but he is entirely aware of the consequences of his actions. News of his story will most certainly get out.

"I liked you better when all you did was stare and brood," Raoul snaps, and turns to stare blankly at the darkened city through the glass of the library window. It was so much easier to protect you, then. The thought comes at him so quickly, and from absolutely nowhere that the Vicomte physically shakes his head, and stares at his reflection with wild eyes. That cannot be why he is so put off. Raoul has never wanted to protect him, because he has always known that Erik can look after himself better than any man.

Again, perhaps it is not a desire to protect the older man, who in so many ways is even younger than he, but a simple desire to be needed by another. At dinner tonight, Erik proved he can hold his own, and no longer needs a patron to shield him from the horrors of society.

Raoul exhales hard through his nose and turns on his heel away from the windows, ferociously removing his coat and throwing it on to the chair. "Please, just prepare me the next time you decide to go on tangents about things that never actually happened but in fact will be appearing in the papers the next day."

Erik laughs at him; an actual laugh, with no bitter malice, only wry amusement. He enjoys ruffling the boy's feathers. "Agreed," he says, still retaining a smile. "Where are we to play next?"

"We?" Raoul echoes, stiff and hot, and reaches for his throat to undo his necktie with quick, rough fingers. "Erik, it is your music, not our music, we do not make your music. I do nothing but fund you, and it is very clear that with what you have made from all of this so far, you no longer require my resources. There is no we," he jerks the tie off, and tosses it onto the chair with his coat, raising both eyebrows at the other man and holding up both empty hands. "There is you. And you no longer need me."

Erik sits at the piano, seemingly unaffected by Raoul's outburst, and yet he does not speak. There is a heavy silence between them for a very long time, and Raoul can only stand there in his awkward nature, wondering what to do. It has been so long since he was sure of what to do, or even sure of himself. It used to come so easy to him, his charm, appeal, strategy—now he feels as if he is once again taking his first steps into a strange, new world.

"You are very wrong," Erik replies, smoothly and without contest. He does not get up from the piano, but sets his pen on his stacks of paper, and keeps his back turned to Raoul. Even as he does this, Raoul can still feel his undivided attention. "You are wrong because I do need you. You fight for me, Raoul."

"I fight for you," Raoul says, more of a snort than a statement.

"You and I fight on separate battlefields, Vicomte. Separate, but equally gruesome. Every booking, every dinner, every…word we speak, you fight for me," The dark head inclines as Erik turns his eyes up to the ceiling of the library. With one hand he removes his mask, and sets it beside the pen. Erik glances over his shoulder at Raoul, and the disfigured side of his features are hidden by shadow, and his eyes are caught by the dim light. Raoul finds he cannot bring himself to look away.

"And you fight a grace I would never have in me. Nothing I could ever manage," Erik says. "without you."


	33. 33

**33**

Since the confession at dinner Erik has almost entirely set himself free, of concerns, of insecurities—of the very concept of fear, if any could ever touch the man who resembled walking death. In the weeks since Countess Elena Foxhall lead him into a trap he proved far too clever to fall into, they have almost become closer. The Countess and Erik are most certainly a pair, and their complete lack of interest with the rest of the world is what brings them together. That is not to say, of course, that she and Erik might ever get along as friends—there is definitely an underlying, angry tension between the two—but the thought of one another's company does seem to intrigue.

They have been to the Opera together, and had dinner on more occasions than invitations the Countess can produce, and it bothers Raoul. These thoughts circle viciously through his head at the ball Lord and Lady Batterly are throwing tonight, as he grips his champagne and stands bitterly in the corner. He is a selfish child, and he knows it well but he does not care. He did not see this Countess in his future in the beginning, and certainly grants her no welcome now.

It has been so long since Erik touched him that Raoul has almost entirely rationalized with himself that what went on between them in the caves of the Opera House never really happened. They were never enemies, friends, or lovers brought together by circumstances both cruel and unusual, but rather two companions with a common interest. Raoul's grip on the reality of the past has waned so far that he has found himself aroused at the sight of some of the scantly clad women present here tonight. Every glimpse of skin, a neck, a low shoulder, décolletage or else sets that familiar burn in his legs and into the more affected parts of his body.

Raoul coughs, awkwardly, and reminds himself that he is not quite ready to continue his search for the perfect girl his parents would love him to meet. Despite everything, Raoul knows in his heart of hearts that he had already found her, and if he is not meant to be with his best friend then there will never be a woman he could love so again.

From where he stands he can safely watch Erik and the Countess continue on their directionless conversation. The Vicomte is so bored he can hardly stand it, and downs the rest of his glass. I used to enjoy nights like these. I remember what it was to live, he thinks distantly to himself, and lets the champagne swish over his tongue and into his cheek before swallowing it down. What ever have you done to me, Phantom.

As the waiter passes, Raoul makes sure to snatch another champagne from the tray and start on that one even before he properly finishes swallowing the last of the one before. No one person has ever put him off just as much as Erik has managed to tonight.

She wants him to dance with her, Raoul can see from his post, and he almost cracks a very immature smile. He knows exactly how this will play out: it has been nearly a two months since Erik first met "Elena" and he still will hardly look at her, much less get close enough to touch her. Erik's face grows very, very still, and looks even whiter than his mask when the Countess gestures to the other couples waltzing around the ballroom.

"You are a fool," Erik murmurs, with a sardonic gaze fixed on the dark beauty. "To assume I am enough of a dancing man to accept your offer, Madame." Raoul hopes this will drive her away, but of course it does not, and she only smiles wider, and sips her champagne without taking her eyes off his face.

"Very well, Monsieur," she says in return. "Very well."


	34. 34

**Author's Note: **Well, it's back. The once-resolved needs-to-be-resolved-again sexual tension. The he-said, he-said. The are, aren't they. The extremely short chapters that make people want to grind their teeth and commit heinous acts of destruction. The cliff-hangers. The Is-Erik-Straight-Enough-to-Bang-a-Chick-and-how-will-it-affect-Raoul.

I'm so sorry for the delay, to whoever even still reads this. I sort of hid a quarter-life crisis not too long ago, and that made it difficult to concentrate on. I've wanted to continue it, and a certain Australian I know and love tempted me with slashy manips and icons if I were to produce a few more chapters (maybe an ending?), so here she is. More to come.

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**34**

The days go by, and never so slow for the Vicomte. He watches his world pass him by as if he were standing in the very bottom of a well. It is no longer a world he may call his own, or find claim in, because there is nothing left to teach Erik. In the beginning it was as if he had taken Erik by the hand and guided through even the darkest days the outside presented, and he adapted with the greatest of ease. That is a growing, itching, biting, nagging disease for Raoul. It takes him, piece by piece and every day.

He keeps his wits about him tonight, at Erik's second concert. The Phantom has rejected the idea of another orchestra performance, and will be accompanied by none tonight as he again takes his place before the organ. The Countess insisted, again, upon an orchestra but Erik threatened to not attend, which of course would be a considerable problem as half the audience were only truly there to see the mask, in some silly hope it might slip off and new gossip would air for the taking.

Erik and his Countess had argued for a good half hour before the Phantom's wishes were met, so it surprises Raoul somewhat to see her on his arm as they enter the hall. Erik's arm is extended like any gentleman, save for the fact that it is closer to his body than Raoul would truly like, and her daintily gloved hands are resting just at his ribcage. The touch is so intimate it is almost improper. She hangs on him, considering herself a trophy and not hesitant to let the world know.

_Careful there_, Raoul's thoughts murmur inside his head. _You enchant him now only because you are what he has never tasted. He wants you, because of your femininity and what you represent…but not even that is worthy of Erik's attention after long. He will grow bored with you, and when he finds nothing left to take from you he will discard you. Countess – Elaine --- you have not the slightest hint of what you could be starting here. And yet you have always played with fire, haven't you?_

There is a flicker in the dark eyes of the Countess as she turns back to glance at Raoul, and the long lashes close over them before Raoul can identify exactly what it was. She is gone again, on the arm of her protector, and Raoul cannot stop her from where he is. Nor can he save her, now.

And yet, at the same time, Raoul is torn with the slightest edge of worry. He has known Elaine Winter for some years now, and she is not a woman of slow wit. She is not entirely oblivious to the likes of Erik, and possibly even understands something of what he truly is. She is not like the other aristocrats who are charmed by his wit and his mystery. There is something she can understand that the masses are blind to, but she does not wish to understand it. She wishes to prey on Erik, as he is the most challenging game she may ever pursue.

Raoul is somewhat distracted when they finally approach the backstage door, and Erik is the single stop in the continuously moving crowd. He transfers the Countess over to Raoul in one fluid movement, and is gone just as quickly. Raoul, however, is left with the arm of the Countess tangled about his waist. Her silk clad arm is stiff against his ribs, and she barely even glances at him as he removes her arm from such intimate contact and politely hooks it into his elbow. He feels her leaning into him, her soft warmth, her curves lightly bumping his straight hips, and he can hardly stand it.

It is not the very thought of a woman's touch that repulses him; even now, he would gladly accept even the lightest form of affection from Christine, or one with her sweet disposition and desire to truly love. It is the Countess, and she alone he finds repulsive, in every possible way known to man. She is a thing used, discarded, and used again, and what is more disgusting: she loves it, and she loves that everyone may know it.

After the performance, Raoul knows better than to allow the Countess to follow him to the backstage, and so he goes alone, shaking hands and smiling at all those anxiously awaiting by the exit to meet the composer. Raoul ducks beneath tatters of hanging rope, and pushes the musty oak door open, walking into darkness. Erik is there, behind the curtain with his head in his hands, silent and still until the light breaks into the room. He looks up at Raoul, and the dead eyes betray no expression.

"Are you ready?" Raoul asks, mildly, and Erik turns back to the darkness, running his hands up to cover his lips and the better half of his nose. "We are due for the Countess' luncheon in ten minutes. I suspect there will be plenty of ninnies to ask you questions, and I give you permission to answer them in anyway you like-"

"I won't be attending, Vicomte," Erik interrupted him, and came to his feet without a sound. He made for the backstage door, intending a very silent exit and more than likely expecting a challenge from his patron. Raoul waits by his doorframe, and listens for the squeal of the other door to open, and then close. There is nothing. Somewhere, in the darkness, Erik is awaiting some kind of permission, or scolding. Raoul takes another hesitant step into narrow little hallway.

"Very well," Raoul finally says, and there is a shift of clothing in the other end of the hall. "I thought it would be healthier to enjoy my time in Florence this afternoon. No luncheons, no socializing, just the sunshine and a soft breeze. I would like it very much if you would join me."


	35. 35

**Author's Note: **Wow, thank you all very much for the encouragment. I'm trying to get this thing rolling by posting all that I have, to just get back into the groove. You guys really made it much easier to pick up where I left off. Again, thanks so much, and I hope you enjoy it.

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**35**

Raoul has not forgotten.

In every move Erik makes, every step, every lingering stare and flash in the dark blue of the Phantom's eyes, Raoul can see remnants of the Countess Winter. He cannot seem to put out of this mind the nature of such possessive stares over a crowded dinner table, or the hollow fear that once filled his belly when Erik would regard him in that dark, wanting stare. It is not a yearning for liberation, or release: it is a brewing anger, a need for vengeance against one so crass in her nature, one who flaunts her sex before the Phantom and knows he may never feel worthy of it.

Raoul knows Erik will not yield to her games. His newfound power is not accompanied with easy restraint.

He tries to shake off the worry, and yet even the warmth of Florence's sun on his shoulder will not comfort him. He strolls alongside Erik in silence, and catches himself staring into the other man's masked face. He seems deep in thought, and will not even glance at any others that pass them in the crowded streets. He is not at all a stranger to this strange land, and yet still alienates himself to it.

"I wondered today," Raoul says, loud enough to earn a flicked side-glance. "…I wondered if I have ever seen you smile."

Erik pauses, and his mouth twists into something that accurately portrays something of amusement. He half laughs, wryly. "You have seen me smile. You are perhaps the only one, but you have seen it. I promise you, Vicomte."

_You have smiled_, Raoul murmurs in the quiet of his own mind. _You have never smiled in sheer joy. I wonder if you have ever felt it._

Erik slows to a halt as they pass a little trinket stand, draped in blue and green and gold curtains with chimes hanging about them. Something about it has caught Erik's attention, and the Phantom ignores the wide-eyed merchant as he reaches out to admire one of the tiny, ivory elephants on display. It is almost small enough to slip through Erik's fingers, and Raoul cannot find whatever it is Erik has discovered that is so fascinating about it. He wonders if perhaps it strikes a memory.

From somewhere behind them, a voice barks in the crowd, and Raoul turns mutely.

"Monsieur," It is a thin man with a very poor Italian accent and a set of yellow, rotting teeth. Excitement gleams on his dirty face, and Raoul regards him silently with only a polite, uninviting smile. "Do not waste your time on this man's collection, monsieur, what I have to sell you and your gentleman friend is infinitely more precious! Please, sirs!" Erik has turned to face the little man as well, and his expression is not so welcoming.

"We are fine, thank you, monsieur," Erik tells him, soft and dangerous. He turns for a moment only to set the little elephant back down on its shelf, and looks the man in the eyes once more. "Please leave us now."

"But-but monsieur le Vicomte!"

Raoul stops when his name is dropped from strange lips, and realizes he should not be entirely surprised after a moment. After all, he and his composer are the toast of the city these days. And yet, he is still stirring an uneasy warning over and over again in the very pit of his stomach. The little man smiles, and ducks his head, holding forward an item that fills both palms and is draped in a delicate brown silk. Eyes appear, as his head begins to turn up, and he focuses on the Phantom.

"Monsieur Erik," he murmurs. "This will fascinate you, most of all, perhaps. Come. Take it." Raoul feels a strong hand seize his bicep, and Erik has turned again to face the little man. The Vicomte feels like a child, prepared to be yanked away from a potentially dangerous situation. Erik's tone has reached deadly.

"We are not interested, monsieur, stop following us," he snaps, and Raoul twists a glance into Erik's stone face. The dark blue eyes have narrowed into almost an animalistic defense. "Leave us and go."

The thin man begins a rotten half-grin, and continues as if he did not hear any threat in the Phantom's voice. "Monsieur Erik," he says. "This is very rare, and very valuable. It is said to have been found in the ruins of a burned monument. Something that was once a brilliant structure," the little man loses all smiles, in his voice, on his lips, in his eyes. "Perhaps an opera house, or theater, I should think." The worry has breached inside of Raoul, and it suddenly becomes abundantly clear to him. Erik knows this man, or at least his intentions. There is something between the two and Raoul should have sensed it right away. The man does not wish to sell anything at all. He has come for the Phantom. He has come to collect a prize.

"Yes," Raoul murmurs slowly, and jerks out of Erik's grip with agitated force. "I am very interested, let me see it." The silk is promptly removed. It is something Raoul does recognize, and yet at the same time he knows he should not remember it. It was nothing save a blur of detail in the long, drawn out memory of those dark months. He sees that there is no expression to be noted on Erik's face, but Raoul can still feels alarm rising off of him like heat.

_What could be so alarming about a toy Persian monkey, finely dressed and holding two, tiny gold cymbals?_


	36. 36

**36**

Raoul never even saw Erik disappear. It is, perhaps, what the Phantom does best.

He stands in the darkness of his room, dim and half-lit by the evening that stretches from a window in long, orange talons across the floor. Erik presses himself to the wall, and does not move, or speak a word. He knows the man would not give any information to Raoul alone, as it would do him absolutely no good to torment the young man. The mercenary simply does not care about Raoul, or what he knows.

The Vicomte was always an innocent in the trials has Erik inflicted upon him, and the boy's attempts to protect him even now would not have been considered worthy a crime for these mercenaries. None would believe that story.

The door begins to creak open, and the light from the lamps in the hall pour inside. Raoul is shadowed, but Erik may still see the sharp, kind features of his patron appear from behind the doorframe. Erik watches him cross the room, and keeps his eyes to the window when the boy stands before him. He seems confused, and agitated by the thoughtful trance he has found the Phantom in.

"What in God's name got into you?!" Raoul rasps, somewhat breathless. Erik will not look at him, and only gives a single headshake. He cannot stand to look at the flushed face, the narrow features and the parted lips. Briefly, he remembers when they were his, without fear, hesitation or consequence. He mustn't remember, because Erik knows now what he finally must do.

"I am leaving Florence, Vicomte."

"The merchant bothered you more than I'd thought."

"Do not be an idiot," Erik growls, and pushes past Raoul, bumping his shoulder hard and making for the bed. He does not intend to pack. "You must understand me now, you must trust me. And you must not follow me." Raoul is not silent behind him. His breathing has become heavy, out of rhythm, and Erik predicts the younger man far too well to not expect an outburst of some kind.

Sharp fingertips stab into the sides of his arms, and Erik is quickly spun around to face the sparking pale eyes. "Why?! What has gotten into you, that you would leave in the middle of something so magnificent!?"

Erik's teeth are bared in a snarl, and he watches the anger turn into a sudden, wild fear over Raoul's face. It does not come without satisfaction. The Phantom reaches up to catch Raoul's shoulders in return, grimacing repressed pleasure and with all the strength he possesses shoves the boy hard into the wall beside the bed. The Vicomte is not down a moment before Erik is at his throat again, and snares his collar as though his fingers have become talons.

"You stupid boy, he was a detective!" Erik thunders, and Raoul flinches beneath him, and turns his face away from the assault. "He followed me, and he knows more than anyone exactly what I am!" It is as if they are under the ground again, and Erik has reduced his prisoner to a mewling child, begging for mercy. The more guilt takes him, the more Erik realizes what he must do. To spare the boy, he must truly make himself disappear. Erik releases him, hard, and the back of Raoul's head cracks against the wall, and he stares up at Erik in wonder, and horror.

Erik ducks his head, and hides it in his hands, running long fingers through his dark hair. Raoul will not move, or say a word. He waits to be spoken to.

"He knows what I am, Vicomte," Erik finally says, his words rough as though choked in his throat. He inhales, deeply, and comes to sit on the bed. Raoul remains where he is, and still will not turn his head in the direction of the troubled composer. "He knows what I am capable of. This man knows …what I am worth dead, and what I am worth alive and he will stop at nothing." Erik lets his head fall into his hands again, a pleasant, calming darkness. "He _will_ …separate us."

Erik hears Raoul come to his feet and slowly, hesitantly leave the room. He suspects solitude will do the boy some good.

What he does not see is the brown, silk-wrapped trinket lying idly by the doorframe. Raoul takes it as he makes his way out, and carries it into his own room. What Erik does not see is that Raoul is beginning to remember where he has seen such a unique, pretty thing before. He sets it down, and allows the little creature to chime its cymbals together in tune with the melody.

Raoul remembers the dark nights as they passed one by one. Raoul remembers the grief of the Phantom, the howls of the organ and its last farewell to the beauty that ruined its master. Raoul remembers the water, lapping at his face and weighing his aching body down. Raoul remembers the melody as it plays: dark, soft, and sad. The one comfort of a lonely child.

Raoul remembers.


	37. 37

**Author's Note: **I realize that I'm throwing these updates out there… I promise I'm going somewhere with this. However, this is quite a long story. Almost twice as long as 'Jackal' was, and so my drabbles and vignettes are beginning to sort of focus in, and then pull back out to the big picture again. That's why there are ones like these, where you basically get the idea that they're fleeing the city, and then there long ones with, eh… more 'intimate' details. ) Anyway—I suppose I ranted about that because my style irked me today, and I kicked myself with a big "STOP BEING SO INCONSISTENT" sign. Anyway. 'Nuff blabbing. Thank you all for keeping up with this! I'm really getting back into this fandom, and I'm having a blast.

--- --- ---

**37**

"We cancelled the Florence bookings. There was a fuss, but nothing unmanageable."

Erik has nothing to say. The carriage of the Vicomte de Chagny rides softly over the dark streets, and every curtain is drawn. They have departed for Venice, the city by the sea, and before finding a chance to make a silent exit, the boy once again compromised with him. He is beginning to wonder if Raoul took on a lesson or two in their time together, how to truly deceive and manipulate. If such is the case, he hides it well indeed.

"You did not kill him," Raoul's voice is the faintest whisper, and it earns only the slightest inclination of the Phantom's dark head. "Do you wish you had?" Erik expects the shameful, disappointment in the others eyes upon his answer. He wishes so much to change what Erik is, and Erik knows it cannot be. He will never change. He will never forgive a world that has forsaken him, again and again, and he will never cease to end the lives of those who threaten him. He will not trust, and he will not be taken by the weakness of childhood fears. He has long passed the opportunity to live again.

"I wish," Erik murmurs, and strokes his bottom lip with a gloved forefinger. He focuses on nothing. "that I would not make such fatal mistakes as bestowing mercy on one who hunts me." His eyes flick up to meet Raoul's. "I am a murderer, Vicomte. You forget that."

Raoul shakes his head. "I do not believe you a murderer," he stands his ground. "You have always fought for survival."

_I fought for what I wanted. What I loved. I murdered for Christine, as I have murdered for you. I have held a life in my hands and felt it wither in my arms to protect the new freedom you have given me. And so, I feel no guilt, I feel no sorrow. I feel no pain for the lives I have taken, Vicomte. _And yet Erik cannot express this to his patron. He fears, darkly, and terribly, the look that would come into the eyes of the one soul left in the world that might have loved him, once.

"It is more than likely our trail will be lost. When word spreads back to Florence of our Venice bookings, we will be long on our way out." Raoul has shifted the subject, and leaves it at that. He says not another word for the remainder of their travel. Such silence is not alienating, or uncomfortable for Erik. He was born in such silence, and since learned to live with it.


	38. 38

**Author's Note: **Warning, Rated PG-13 for suggested heterosexual themes. (But not for long!) Sorry—I found that kind of funny ) Thanks you guys!

--- --- ---

**38**

In every Villa the composer and his patron have come across, even in the dead of night, there has always been a brandy and two empty glasses in the sitting room awaiting their arrival. Raoul pours himself a glass, and another for Erik. The Phantom will not sit down, and though he is clearly as exhausted as Raoul, he still paces around the room. Raoul takes a generous sip, and closes his eyes as the warm liqueur scours his throat. It seems Erik will not touch his.

He stands where his piano ought to be, arm straight and set at the small of his back, and stares forward, as if in disappointment that it has not yet arrived. A good lot of their possessions are to come the following day, and for one night they will have to survive on what the villa has to offer.

"The bedrooms are prepared," Raoul tells him, and Erik only nods, eyes still on the wall.

"Yes, I know. Forgive me," He tilts his head downward to half-glance behind him, and Raoul cannot see the dark blue beneath the heavy eyelids. "I try, but I cannot sleep. At least not yet." Raoul offers a slacken attempt at a smile, but it will not come to his lips. He and Erik have not spoken in sometime, and he feels strange behaving like this; as if nothing is out of the ordinary, and Venice was simply their next stop. Yet, at the same time, he fears to address the truth.

Perhaps it is not the uncomfortable silence, or the refusal of Erik to make eye contact that bothers him the most. Erik no longer needs him, and it has begun to eat away at the strength he initially had in the beginning of this tour. Such power came with it, for once, and over Erik as well. Slowly and surely, Erik is making him fear again. Raoul comes to sit on one of the chairs around a delicate little table, and finishes off his brandy. He clears his throat, and turns in his seat to address his composer.

"Forgive me, sirs," the housekeeper, a short fat woman with a kind face and tightly pulled grey hair, quickly bows and stands to the side. "The Countess of Foxhall is here. She told me to tell you she is sorry for the hour of her coming. Shall I show her in?"

Erik stares at the housekeeper, blank and yet somewhat thoughtful. Dark eyes flick to Raoul, as if the Vicomte will honestly turn the Countess Winter away. Raoul gives a single-shouldered shrug, and nods to the old woman.

"Ah-yes. Show her in, thank you," he breathes, and glances back to Erik. The Phantom's stoic face is focused on the hall in which the Countess will approach, and Raoul wishes that, if only for a moment, he could somehow catch Erik's attention before she were to enter. There is so much he would say, and yet it must go unsaid. He takes a step or two closer to Erik, to at least be by his side when she strikes.

From the shadowed hallway comes Elena Winter, veiled in black and as frightening as she is beautiful. Dark hair tumbles down the slope of her back when she removes the veil, and her black eyes fall onto the Phantom first and foremost. Pouted lips form into a darkly delighted smile, and yet when she speaks she seems naught but a concerned, old friend.

"My Darlings," she whispers, almost breathlessly, and wraps her lithe, lace tattered arms around his neck and presses her cool cheek to his. "You left with no warning, I was so worried about you. I was certain something had happened." She moves over to Erik, and that is when the heat begins to prickle up the back of Raoul's neck. He feels a hiss begin to rise in his throat, and chokes on it as Elena gathers Erik's hard, cold frame into her arms and holds him tight.

Raoul can see the change in Erik, and his arms remain at his sides. He is paralyzed in this moment, with a look of discomfort on his face that appears willing to change at any time to abject fear. He glances up at Raoul, as if blaming him for this new position he finds himself in. Slowly, in his own, bitter, dangerous way, Erik starts to give in to the situation and twists his arms upward, just at the elbows, to let his hands fall upon the small of her waist. She curves up like a snake, pulling only slightly away, enough to look into the masked face with a smile in the corner of her lips.

"Is everything all right?" she asks Erik, and after a moment, without releasing the captive body in her web she turns to Raoul. The way she has turned her body has strained it enough that every shadow of light muscle, every curve and every indention is available to Erik's view. Raoul's breath is caught in his throat, and he cannot find four words to string together with her staring him down. He can see that she has succeeded in catching the Phantom's attention, and his eyes fall almost hungrily on the planes of her olive skin. "I had a good amount of explaining to do to the managers of the concert hall on behalf of my boys, you know," she tells him with a smile, and her eyes flick back to Erik. "Well? Aren't you going to tell me anything of why you left?"

Erik finally releases her, and with stiff fingers gently pries her arms from around him. "Florence became too crowded, Mamselle," he murmurs, and steps away from her. For the first time all night he picks his brandy up from the table and takes a long sip. Erik pauses in the sitting room, the very tip of his tongue running over the taste of brandy on his parted lips, and his eyes linger a moment more on the Countess. He sets the glass down, and nods to Raoul. "Goodnight, Vicomte. Countess."

The Countess smiles quietly as she watches him make his way up the staircase, and touches the base of her throat almost contently. She takes in a deep breath, and exhales softly. That is when her eyes fall on Raoul. That is when she knows she has been caught. Her fingers curl around her neckline, and the smile widens, almost mockingly.

"Forgive me, Raoul," she sighs. "Your composer still takes my breath away, I am afraid. Even off of the stage." The Vicomte resigns to a forced half-smile, and wearily takes a seat in the one of the chairs. Her eyes have not left the staircase, and she lowers herself down across from him. "He is truly magnificent. In a way," she says, softly, and smiles at Raoul. "He reminds me of your dear brother." Raoul does not return her smile, and it is that uncomfortable expression that she notices right away. She stares forward at him, almost as if inviting challenge.

"Countess," he tells her, softly, and brings his leg over his knee, and the warmth of the brandy running through his blood gives him the courage to face her. "M. Erik is… nothing like my elder brother. I do… respect your feelings for him, but what he has told you is under that mask is nothing of the truth." The black eyes of this darkly beautiful, devious woman light up, and she leans forward in an almost improper gesture of excitement. Thrill has played upon her face, and there is no turning back now.

"Then you must tell me, Raoul," she whispers. "I must know, nothing else will satisfy me."

Raoul's face is still. "A lifetime of suffering," he tells her, dry and flat without the glee that still brought upon her smile. "A lifetime of rejection, of being caged and humiliated, seen as inhuman. He has worked so hard to rise above it, and all that has come out of his trials is a dark figure. A man that does not know what he wants, and will violently take what he finally decides he needs."

The Countess' smile turns into sheer fascination. "There was no fire," she breathes, and Raoul quails inwardly. There was a fire, in fact, and Erik was not at all free of that responsibility, but he certainly did not obtain his deformity from it. "He was born into this curse."

The Vicomte nods, and swallows hard. "Please," he whispers. "Take caution in all you do around him. He is not often touched, and is not at all comfortable with it. He prefers not to be spoken to, and he cannot learn to forgive your sex for what you all have done to him. Please, be careful."

"I crave him, Raoul," she hisses, secretively and yet far bolder and daring than what reaction Raoul had expected. Her full lips turn into a pout, and when she leans forward her dark hair spills around her shoulders, her cleavage, and does not help to conceal her charms. "I crave his attention, his company, I spend my days wondering if he could possibly notice me and remember my name. There are so many of us he could have," she says, and sits up straight. Her chin lifts up, and she is looking almost down upon Raoul, content in her new satisfaction. "The others are sure to give him grief, and heartache… I intend to give him my body, in exchange for his soul. I want him. I cannot stop."

Raoul is quiet a moment, and he lets his hand cover the lower half of his face. There is nothing, now, that he may say to her. He cannot call her off, he cannot separate her from the Phantom, and yet his deepest fear is that she may find out just why he wants no one else to have his composer.


	39. 39

**39**

_"With this city behind me, I will go back into the world."_

_"The world won't take you. The world made very clear how much of you they are willing to tolerate. It cast you out."_

The hateful words have surfaced again in the very foreground of Raoul's new reality, and he sits upon the staircase in silent, doomful thought. His forefinger rests above his upper lip in folded hands, and he wonders how he could have been so wrong. The world had cast Erik out, and taken him back just as quickly, with open arms. Women swoon and fate at the sight of that mysterious, ivory shield, and when the Phantom could have any of those beautiful women he has only let one breach his insides.

Raoul hates the Countess for a number of reasons, and yet the one that will not leave his thoughts is that this black beauty has led Erik into a trap and has begun to tame him. Raoul could not have tamed Erik as quickly as this woman is, and it torments him night and day. Erik is still like an animal, a fox caught in a trap who chewed its own foot off to free itself and now can never be brought back to life as it was. He is too far gone, and Raoul has fought for what feels like forever to be the one to save him. To bring him back. To make him human.

The Vicomte lets his hands slide over his temples and he grips his hair, doubling over into his knees and shutting his eyes. He is weary of this, of dwelling on it for hours on this long staircase. Soon it will be dawn, and the servants will awake to find him just where they had left him the night before.

He fears that when the Countess pushes Erik too far—and of course, she will, it is what she does—that Erik will finally prove to Raoul, and the world, that the monster has not truly become a man. Or worse, that the man and the monster are forever the same, and Erik still does not understand the boundaries of human contact, and trust, and violation, and depravity.

Raoul cannot help but think that this is what he wanted all along. Alone in a dungeon of his own, Erik could only ever hope to be loved by one, and so he held on to the living nightmare of their time together for months after Raoul's escape. Selfishly, Raoul had taken warm comfort in those first, few hesitant steps Erik had taken into the sunlight, and meant desperately not to lose it. The Countess entered their world, and with her came an eternal night they cannot escape from without losing one another.

Raoul knows these things do not torment the Phantom, and yet these sleepless nights will very soon drive him to madness. He awaits it, and yet hates to think of what may come from it. The top of his head begins to warm subtly beneath his fingers, and Raoul keeps his eyes closed tightly.

"M. le Vicomte,"

Raoul does not want to lift his head, but he does so anyway, and the housekeeper visibly represses a gasp. She lets her hand cover her sagging mouth, and he wonders what it is she could see. Red eyes, laced with veins and exhaustion. A drawn face. Tear-streaks, perhaps.

"M. le Vicomte," she whispers in very poor french, and bows quickly. "It is dawn. You requested I wake you by dawn." Raoul frowns, and flicks his swollen, tired eyes to the closest window. The horizon begins to glow, but Raoul only lets his head fall into his hands again. _So it is dawn._


	40. 40

**40**

Erik is deliciously confident tonight, and she is on his right arm with the sulking Vicomte falling behind their awkward trio. He pauses at the ramp leading to the backstage, and yet the Countess dares to follow Erik into those dark halls. She keeps her long fingers entwined around the fine material of his long black sleeves, and they do not look at one another as they ascend the steps.

When Monsieur Erik stops at the very top of those steps, the Countess knows that the Vicomte can still see them from where he stands in the shadows. Subtly, he begins to turn away, and her stoic, delicate features melt into a smile. She faces him, and the grim mask stares down at her. Her hands slide up the tops of his arms, and wrap themselves around his shoulders so that their bodies are but inches apart. He is hot, and shaking deep into his bones.

She wonders if, perhaps, he shakes inside for her.

"It is time," is all he says, in a deep, rough voice that strikes a slight accent she supposes he developed on his own, somewhere in the dark void of time spent in solitude. She reads it upon his face, she smells it on his clothing, and imagines she could taste it on his skin, and in the heat of his kiss. "Goodnight, Countess. I think that it… will be sometime before we see one another again."

"Yes," she breathes. "I knew I would not see you at dinner tonight. You prefer your solitude." Erik's brow twitches, the slightest sign of amusement is writ across his face, and he gives a single nod. She reaches up with both hands, long fingers caging the sides of face and mask. "Then I suppose this would not be improper of me," she whispers, expressionless, and lifts herself just high enough to meet his warm lips, and lingers a moment. Her mouth opens, ever so slightly, and she deepens this kiss, sliding her tongue briefly over the swell of his bottom lip.

Erik freezes. She feels his body harden before hers, and every muscle is at a stand still. She smiles on the inside, and moves in to kiss him again, harder and deeper, to see just how far she may push him. Erik responds, and at the moment he lets her in she pulls away. The Countess softly traces her finger down the rise of his cheekbone, and down to his jaw line. His eyes are solely hers, wide and fascinated and yet terrified. She is captive in a long stare that has left Erik breathless. She has never seen his face like this before.

"Or perhaps it is," she steps away from him. "Slightly… improper. Goodnight, Monsieur Erik."

The Countess Elaine Winter makes her way alone back down the steps, silent and repressing a darkly tinged joy from her eyes and her face. In the very front row of the audience is her vacant seat, right beside Raoul. The Vicomte will not speak, or look at her. He focuses on the drawn red curtain, and his face is unreadable. Perhaps thoughtful. The stage remains dark, and she delicately lowers herself into her red velvet seat. In the very corner of her sight she catches the turn of his eyes, and is once again caught in a watchful stare. The young man seems dangerously concerned now, and the Countess slowly turns her head to meet him.

"Your friend is beautiful," she whispers, and dares to study the encrypted message behind the glassy pale eyes. "He is beautiful, on the inside and he is magnificent on the outside. I have fallen for him, Raoul, darling. I have crossed boundaries and continents to know him. I have found what it is I have been looking for."

The curtain sweeps to the side, and the applause erupts in an uproar around them. Raoul does not take his eyes off the Countess, even as she applauds for Erik's appearance on stage, and his bow before his listeners.

"You cannot know what you are meddling with," there is warning in his voice; a cautionary tale with every word, words laced with memories and history. This boy knows more than he has ever let on, but the Countess wants to discover it all for herself. "He is nobody's friend, Madame, he is not mine and he is not yours. He can learn to love as you and I can, but he cannot keep that love, he can only destroy it." Raoul turns away. He is flustered now, and bothered, and upset, and she can feel the caged anger seething to break free.

And yet, as his eyes lock onto the man upon the stage, seated before his instrument, she can see something else in Raoul. It is also caged, and repressed to the deepest and darkest side of his hopes, and his soul. It is a longing. He watches Erik and he understands her need. He watches Erik and he sees what she sees, challenge and darkness and beauty like nothing else on Earth. When he watches Erik he does not listen to the music, but he concentrates. He concentrates on every movement of his body, every twitch of muscle, every expression that forms on the exposed half of his face.

"Why," she wonders, aloud and innocent without taking a moment to look at him. "do you want no one else to have him, Vicomte?" Raoul turns his head as though he has been struck, and for a moment his expression has laid him open, naked and helpless before her speculation. Before he has time to gather himself, she has already won this battle of words. The Countess returns his stare, and yet offers nothing but a quiet smile.


	41. 41

**Author's Blabbering: **I'm trying to get to the next chapter today, because I've been looking forward to writing that one for like… shoot, since I started this.

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**41**

Raoul shudders, and a spasm from the pit of his stomach forces red wine into the basin he is doubled over. He will not open his eyes, and coughs hard, once, twice before the rest of his drink splatters like fresh arterial blood into the water. Sweat beads on his brow and soaks over his back. Tears streak from his eyes and run from his nose, and it feels as though his mouth cannot gather enough saliva to satiate itself. He spits into the bowl one last time, and holds his handkerchief over his swollen lips. Deep breaths help to calm his nerves and the pounding of his heart, and he stumbles back on his heels to sit against the door of the tiny rest room.

He danced with her.

Erik's shell had transformed him into the image of a gentleman, beyond what he had ever revealed to Raoul. He took that horrible woman in his arms and together they had quietly, and always reserved, made their way around the ballroom. Raoul cannot stand this, and the more he thinks of it in this tiny little stall the more he would prefer to be doubled over the basin again, in more pain than in thought.

He watched, broken and hardly breathing as Erik wanted her. With every motion in Erik's body, every delicate placement of his hands and fingers on her curves, every flick of his stare to see who was watching, and the uncaring shade in his eyes when he saw they were not, he wants her. He needs her, the way he used to need Raoul in their days beneath the ground. Erik looks at Raoul now, and he sees right through him.

The image in the mirror before him is distorted, and he crawls forward to better see the reflection of his chalky, pretty, handsome face. It is not so handsome now, in this light. There are dark circles beneath his eyes and a dread written across the rest of him. It is drawn, and white, and his lips appear thin and pale. Is it far too obvious he has been crying, mewling like an infant.

He remembers how Erik made him hurt, burn and suffer with such unimaginable torment and unimaginable joy, all at once. He was a beautiful thing then, a beautiful mysterious creature to the monster in its Hell, and now that they have escaped together he is another handsome son of a rich man idling the globe. Perhaps that is why he has finally lost Erik to the woman, because though she stands among a hundred of her own kind, she will never truly be one of them. Raoul has known it for as long as he has known her, but to Erik it is simply fascinating.

Perhaps now he realizes why he set out on this tour around the world with Erik. Perhaps now he realizes his own, true motives, and now that they have failed him, he has nowhere else to turn. Perhaps he will return to Paris.


	42. 42

**Author's Note**: Alright, technically it was the next day that I updated… there is sex on the horizon, but I'm worried it's not the kind of sex everyone's hoping for… 

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**42**

"You are in a hurry."

"No," Raoul does not look up with his reply, but offers a tiny smile as he fidgets with his cufflinks. His coat dangles on the straightened arm of the help, awaiting his departure. "I have things I should do, and I have no excuse to dawdle." Erik is seated in one of the elaborate red armchairs, aside the fire with a book in his lap. He does not appear entirely interested in what the younger man is truly up to, and after a moment of regarding him in silent thought, the masked side of his face once again turns away from Raoul.

"Where are you going, then?"

Raoul gives his cuff one last tug and glances up with another forced smile. "People to meet, you know. Hands to shake. Nothing to bother you about, just politics. I know how you despise that aspect of our work."

"Indeed," is the blank reply, and for a moment the smile on Raoul's paled lips flickers with sincerity. It seemed as though that was the beginning of an actual, civil conversation that did not involve anything of their past history, Erik's legendary anger, or the curse that lies between them. They were simply two gentlemen exchanging small talk before parting. Raoul blinks back hot tears, and quietly thanks the man holding his coat.

The Countess will be joining them for dinner tonight, and invited or not, Raoul does not wish to be there for anything in the world. He makes his way quickly out the doors and down the steps. The Countess has already arrived, and Raoul's stomach begins to turn beneath his ribs. He feels ill again, and would have preferred not to have even been present when she made her entrance at all. He knows she fully expected him to make himself scarce this night.

The dark head turns up, and that horrible, beautiful face bends to the will of a kind, toying smile. "Vicomte," she begins, all of her white teeth making an appearance as she reaches out to take his hand. The Countess hesitates, and Raoul gives a little frown. He fights the urge to take a step back, as he feels the black eyes upon him, studying him. She has caught the look on his face, and the redness laced in his eyes. The burning glaze he can battle no more. "Raoul," she says, softly, almost as though she dare not speak. "…you will not be joining us tonight…?"

"You know I cannot," Raoul has to force the words, and they are tight and alien even to his own ears. The lump in his throat hardens like a rock, and at the very edge of pain and grief he cannot hold on to it any longer. The glaze of tears that lay stationary over his eyes slip, and the hot trail finds its way down the side of his face. He swallows, hard. The Countess seems overcome, with a dark pity that quickly turns into sheer pleasure.

"You poor boy," she whispers, hotly, and gently ends the trail of the single tear with a black-gloved hand on his cheek. Raoul is too far gone to break free of her grasp, and so he takes in another shuddering breath. The Countess shakes her head. "You love him." Another tear escapes, and she catches it quickly, and his other cheek as well. Her dark hair is down tonight, around her head and shoulders like black tendrils, curled like snakes about her low-cut dress. The pitiful, kind light in her eyes is gone, and she holds his face in both hands. "You love him, Raoul."

Raoul holds his tongue, until the Countess pulls him closer, so that her sweet breath his hot upon his cheek.

"You want him,"

"Yes," Raoul admits, and feels the red spreading like fire across his cheekbones. He jerks out of her grip, and snaps again, "Yes."

"Then it is more than a boyhood hero worship," she wonders aloud, almost to herself, and narrows her dark eyes so that he can only see long, crossing lashes. She slaps him across the face, only hard enough to turn his head. It stings like poison, and he snarls on the inside. "Deviant. You meant to take him from me because of this silly, sick obsession. You see how he longs for me?" The question is more of a hiss, and her words are clipped. She steps in closer, close enough to kiss him, and the Countess wishes for him to see her face completely, to see the face of Erik's darkest dreams and desires. Raoul stares back at her, eyes wide with unvarnished fury. "You think it is because I am a woman, Vicomte? Something he has never tasted?"

Raoul feels his teeth clenching so hard it begins to hurt, and he opens his mouth to speak when she gives a single shake of her head. Only then does he realize that once again, his face is streaked with hot tears, and again the black fingers come up to gently wipe them away.

"He doesn't want you, Raoul," she says. "He is a man. A real man, and a real man craves but one thing: woman. What ever would he want with you?"

Raoul shakes his head, once. "You cannot know him."

"Oh, Raoul," the warm hand slides from his face, and the air hits him as her strike has. "Look at you, now… just look at you. What would your brother think?" The smile, false or otherwise, is gone from her lips and her black eyes. She turns away from him, disinterested now, and says something of a farewell over her shoulder. Raoul does not turn to watch her go in, and continues on his path down the steps. It is the longest walk he will ever take, down the steps and into the darkness of his carriage to wait.


	43. 43

**43**

The Countess sheds her coat like a snake slides out of its skin, and with a smile allows one of the house girls to take it from her. With long fingers she rests a hand on the girls arm, and murmurs something to her in Italian. The girl nods, and scurries off to spread the message to the rest of the staff. Erik rises from his seat, and the Countess makes her way over to him with silent steps. She is dressed as though in mourning for one of her many husbands, and when she reaches her destination she slowly removes the black gloves from her hands.

Erik clears his throat. "Dinner, Madame?"

The smile widens. "I cannot say I am at all hungry, Monsieur Erik."

"Of course not," Erik scoffs, and turns back to his chair. He sets the book down and does not immediately turn to face her. "Your breed starves, and starves, and wastes away to nothing. And when it is all over, you attempt to squeeze yourself into one of those bone crushing, murderous 'corsets'." He meets her gaze with wry, bitter amusement. "It all seems so ridiculous."

"It is ridiculous," she replies, and makes to corner him again. "Yet, we women do it for our men. To always look our best, on or off the arm." Erik snorts, and when he opens his mouth to speak the Countess cuts him off with her now bare hands on the sides of his face, and mask. She kisses him, and he has come to expect that from her, so he returns it as best as his horrible demeanor will allow. It is hard to forget, sometimes, that this woman is also a monster. A moment like this should be tender, and yet, in her cold hands it is nothing. It is a challenge, at best.

She notices his change in behavior. The Countess pulls away.

"You never call me by my name, Monsieur." Erik is silent a moment, and he regards her with darkened eyes that are simply neutral. He is neither condescending, nor aggressive, now. It is almost a kind forewarning. He sets large hands on her delicate shoulders, and the soft skin heats up beneath his touch.

"You are nameless, to me," he murmurs. "You are neither a Countess, nor a maid, nor a lover, or a conquest. You are as nothing to me, Madame." To his surprise, the Countess' reaction consists of a flicker across her features, unreadable, and yet not at all taken aback by the cruel statement. She reaches up and covers his hands with hers.

"I've been weary of this title for years," she whispers, solemnly. "With you, I am more anything than nothing."

"I can promise you," Erik replies, and has drawn within himself yet again. "Indefinitely. If you let me in, you will not like what you find." Elena Winter runs her hands over the hard curve of his shoulders, and down the well muscled-chest. Erik closes his eyes and lets the sensation take him—it has been so long since he has been touched in this way, or been wanted so badly. He shivers, until the hand stops just where his heart should have been.

"You have been hurt before," Elena says, softly, and thoughtfully. Her fingers curl into his chest. "So badly… there is grief in your every manner. It hangs around you. It clings to your very insides and wraps around your bones." Her eyes come to level with his. "What was her name?"

Erik bares his teeth in a silent snarl, and snatches her wrist up to jerk it away from his chest. "You," he growled. "--Stop trying to be what I cannot replace--!" He is stopped when she leans up to kiss him again, hand on the back of his hand, twining fingers into his hair, and warm lips inviting his. Her kisses drive him to an aching need, and what he gives in return is nothing less than a passionate, aggressive counter strike. Yet even as his body responds, and he knows tonight will not end unless she is his, this is not what he remembers kisses to be.

He feels anger, but no desire. He feels passion, but no attachment. Erik feels nothing.


	44. 44

**Author's Note **This story is rated R in general, but this has _heterosexual themes and some details, vague but… detail-y_. Take it like a band-aid, people, the time for man-love will soon be upon us! Or… will it? Anyway, thanks so much for the support, ya'll. I know this one will be hard to stomach, so there's some peppermints and peptobismal under the your seat D

Thanks!

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**44**

The Countess is even lovelier beneath the thin layers of her conservative clothing, far more so than Erik could have ever imagined. He has never witnessed a sight such as this, and never run his hands over the soft skin and curves of the gentler sex. He has never fallen into a woman and worked such a passionate, rhythmic, violent lovemaking that is more like the beat of war drums than the pursuit of desire. It is clear he has never had a woman before, and so the Countess wonders, somewhere if anywhere in the mist of ecstasy's cloud, how exactly he knows how to move within another body without staggering or throwing himself off.

Or, how he manages to control himself. Elena tries not to wonder, and concentrates on him and him alone, this monster of a man that manages to keep composed as he barrels into her. Her nails dig bloody trenches in his bare back, and she does all but howl in sheer, unmitigated delight and satisfaction. Erik is hurting her, to a certain extent, with his devil-driven thrusts and bruising grasp upon her hip and breast, but the Countess knows exactly why and so will not object. He hurts her, because he hates her, and this is all he can do to not kill her. And she loves him for it.

She throws one of her legs across the small of his back and pushes onto it, holding on as tight as she can while her hands move from his back to try and take a hold of his face. It is somewhat difficult, and he is cold, and dithered with sweat across his body and over his features. The Countess smiles up at him, a predatory gesture, and does not flinch as he purposefully slams into her hips, and grinds hard.

"Perhaps you are gentler," she breathes, hard, and laughs when Erik again pushes mercilessly inside her body, and out again. "---with your handsome Vicomte." When Erik freezes, Elena realizes she has signed her own death warrant, but that does not stop the gleam from coming alive in her dark eyes as he regards her dangerously. Perhaps she has finally gone too far. Erik is most certainly not gentle, and grips her leg with iron fingers, prying it off his hip and in an instant turns her roughly onto her stomach. He pulls her hips up to meet him, and is twice as hard, and as rough as he had previously been. When he is finished with her he pushes her body away from him, and remains on his knees in the confines of the bed, exhausted and dragging in ragged breaths.

"Never say that again, wretch," he whispers, hoarsely, and the Countess, now on her side with a sheet draped leisurely over the swell of her hip, scowls up at him. "You know nothing."

"I have known what you are," she snaps, and her voice has never quite been so shrill. She seems older, and pulls herself vigorously up to reach his mask, removing it without hesitation or fear. The Countess is sure to make a point of tossing it over to the side, and scoffs when she has finally found what she was looking for all this time. She is horrified, and mystified, and mesmerized by it, and Erik reveals nothing else. The Countess is nothing to him now, and he does not react to her reaching up and touching the deformity.

Her fingertips trace over every line, every ridge, every misplaced shallow vein, and a smile grows on her lips much like that of a child playing with fire. Erik closes his eyes, and feels the heat of her other hand approach his cheek, as if comparing the two sides of this coin.

"Then are you satisfied, Madame?" he asks her, stoic and in control now. The Countess nods, thoughtfully almost.

"Yes," she replies, softly, and releases his face, but does not break his gaze. "I have exactly what I came here for tonight. I took something from you." Erik frowns, and she leans over to whisper in his ear, and reveal a delightfully horrible secret. "You are no longer his," she murmurs, and the frown deepens. "You are not his alone, now. I have taken that from you, and so you will never be. I have, inside me now, a part of you he may never have back."

Erik's lips tremble with an inability to find words, and a volcanic rage threatening to breach his self-control. Fuming, he instead reaches out with an open palm and pushes her back onto the bed, letting her naked body wobble uncontrolled and gorging in the fear and humiliation that flashes in her eyes. She rises, and he pushes her down again, easily, with no more effort than he might put into teasing a kitten.

"Now," he orders, cool but dangerously firm. "Cover yourself up, and leave me, whore." Elena is struck silent, and now, in an act of what might even have been called an insecure one, she pulls the sheet up around her breasts, unwilling to let this monster's eyes on her charms any longer. She begins to redress, and Erik does so as well, expeditiously and with a point.

"I know what I am, monsieur," The Countess tells him, as she squeezes her ample bosom into the confines of her blackened corset. "Since the day my first husband met his death, I have always known what would become of me, and with that I am content. But there is something I must know," Erik is silent, but he is willing to listen, and keeps her eyes as she approaches him once more. A thin, white hand covers his chest where his shirt has opened, and beneath the cage his heart is so faint he can hardly feel the beat of it. The Countess looks up at him. "What is left of you here? A broken, lifeless heart?"

Erik's frown deepens, more thoughtful than angry, and he closes his eyes as she reaches up to kiss his temple. It will be the last time he feels her lips upon his skin, and he wonders if he is grateful for that. The Countess' smile flattens, and he should have realized she would be out for one last victory. Elena tilts her head, and mock pity fills the void of expression on her face.

"We all know what happens when the Phantom of the Opera finds himself all alone," she coos. "All alone with nothing but the pieces of his broken little heart." She lets her hand come to rest upon the base of her throat. To kill her would be less than effortless. It would be nothing to him, and she would most certainly take his secret to the grave. The pale face breaks into another smile, and the dark eyes crinkle at the corners, but there is still no joy. "Oh yes, monsieur," she says. "I know what I am. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Madame. I do not think we shall be seeing one another for some time," is all Erik says, hands behind his back, folded with squared shoulders. The Countess laughs, half-heartedly.

"_No," she agrees. "We won't."_


	45. 45

**Author's Note **: I realize that its been two weeks since I updated and I am so sorry. I'm also sorry for this chapter. It is confusing. It is a paralleled scene. It's also rated R for very dark themes. Because this is such a light and fluffy story as is, right? Thanks you guys for understanding. Love yas!

--

**45**

He never left the villa.

The carriage remains in the darkness, without even a driver in the front, and Raoul has long since come to terms with his grief. He hardly breathes, and waits alone. He wonders what tomorrow will bring him, and cannot imagine the Countess as she leaves the Villa. Her journey towards one of her many, illustrious homes is perhaps even darker than Raoul's. She, too, is alone and now tainted by the forbidden affection of the Phantom. The Countess holds many secrets now, secrets that a day ago she would have used to hurt, and torment the two bachelors, simply to make her long days pass a little quicker. She had intended to take many a thing from Erik, and never thought that she could have taken so much.

It is certainly not as satisfying as she once thought it would be. The Countess thought she might, in his desperate, untouched embrace, become a queen. She knows now, that Erik never saw her as anything but a conniving whore. And she hates it, because it is true.

And that has never bothered her, either, so she cannot understand why the long journey up the winding staircase to a hot bath is such a dark one. She has lived in and out of this house since her first husband. That was years ago, and she was beautiful then. Perhaps now, at over thirty-five years of age she is more terrifying than youthful. This house is ridiculous and enormous. Years ago, upon making these long walks up the staircase she could imagine the walls filled with crying, and shouting, and laughter of children she never found time to have. There are only the lingering ghosts of husbands—men, men who loved her and others that did not, gone and dead. She is haunted upon every step.

The last remaining servant girl in the giant house has prepared her a hot bath, and ducks her chin as she turns to say goodnight and take her leave. The Countess offers her a quiet smile that goes on unseen, and begins to peel off the layers of her dress and underwear.

When her bare toes finally hit the steaming water Raoul departs the carriage, and stands aside the door, taking in a very deep breath and closing his eyes. Perhaps it is finally time to go home, lie in the bed he has made for himself and sleep. The Countess does not relax in this bath, but takes the washing cloth hard to her soft skin, scrubbing almost obsessively to remove the taint. However hard she scrubs, however many times the soap and water washes over her skin it remains.

The Countess collapses in the hot water, and closes her eyes, wiping pieces of damp hair from her sticky forehead. Tears build like a dam behind her eyes, and she clenches her teeth. Raoul hesitates at the door, and wonders if he should enter at all. His gloved hand does not feel the cold of the elaborate handle, but the Countess can appreciate the feel of a cool metal handle tangled in her fingers. She draws it up from the floor, and begins to calm as she admires the knife, carved in silver and laid mother-of-pearl at the base. A red skull is engraved at the very bottom. She wonders if Erik will notice it missing.

Elena Winter feels no pain in the warmth of this bath. Not until the water begins to tint pink, and then a full, enveloping scarlet that surrounds her and washes over her naked body like the crest of the waves in the sea.

Elena Winter has only ever loved once, and the years have passed too swiftly to recall what it was like to love, and to have been loved. She knew happiness but cannot remember, and so she no longer wishes to try and recall at all. She begins to feel the ice of her insides warm, and bleed out about her in the water. Even the steam that rises from her dying body appears red.

No beauty of her own person, no admiration, and no love of another can stop this woman from hating herself. She has known since her first speculation of the Phantom's dark secret that she would take it to her grave. Her own murder weapon slips from her fingers, and strikes the bottom of her porcelain coffin. She wishes for no more, and that her death may bring about more darkness and sorrow the Phantom and his boy than he ever expected from a woman.

And as she dies, she knows it cannot be. The Countess may only wish.


	46. 46

**A/N: **Short and sweet. More to come. Thanks for the lovely attention span, lovely readers. )

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**46**

The newspaper feels hot in Raoul's shaking hands, and the heat spreads into his arms, shoulders, and the back of his neck. So the Countess has taken her own life-or at least that is what the papers have decided for now. He takes several quiet steps to the piano, and numbly sets the paper beside the Phantom. He has long since forgotten about the cup of coffee in his hand. Erik's playing comes to a smooth halt, but he has already seen the news, and cannot find the words his patron is looking for.

Raoul inhales deeply, and lets his head fall back to stare at the blank white ceiling. There is nothing to see.

"What do you suppose drove her to do it?"

Erik still will not reply, or touch the paper beside him. He keeps a corner gaze on it, fixed, and undecided. There are things that perhaps he wishes to tell the Vicomte, and yet knows he absolutely cannot. They are written across the pale, masked face, and yet Raoul still cannot read it. Finally, Erik stirs, and inhales deeply as he turns to face Raoul. The fine black and teal dressing gown falls loosely about his lean body, and he props an elbow on the piano. His eyes are distant, and far off.

"She knew our secret: that which must not be spoken of, she knew, somehow," Erik's finger absently strokes his bottom lip, and his darkened eyes avert to the floor. "She promised to take it to the grave. It was one promise she did keep."

There is ambiguity in those words, if not an understated guilt. If there is anything Raoul has learned from his experience in Erik's company, it is that Erik does not feel guilt as others do, and if there is something to feel guilty over, murder is only one of the many things Erik takes far too lightly. Raoul does not dare pry at this strained moment, when the air between them is tight enough with tension. Instead, he tentatively extends his hand, and lightly touches the older man's shoulder. Erik is very still.

"I am sorry," Raoul murmurs softly. "I am sorry if you loved her, in the end."

Erik gives only a single headshake. "I did not love her. She was what I might've been, without this face. She was beautiful, and powerful, and yet desecrated on the inside," Erik turns back to his black and white keys, and briefly glances over Raoul. "Not at all unlike myself. I do not love, Vicomte. I cannot."

Raoul gingerly sets his coffee down on the table beside the piano, and picks up the paper again. He folds it over twice, and tucks it into the little drawer below the table. He taps Erik once on the table, and the stern features of the composer are thrown about in slight confusion as he regards the boy. Raoul tries to break a smile, and yet it does not come.

"We'll try our best to forget about this," he says. "Tonight you and I will be the audience. We'll go to the Opera."


	47. 47

**a/n: **right, so… the next few-ish chapters will probably be a strong R. Not entirely sure yet, but, well… you've been warned. An again, thanks everyone!

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**47**

Raoul has never quite seen a creature so in his element as Erik is tonight.

From the moment they ascended the steps into the grand double doors he felt like a child seeing something wonderful and alien for the very first time, despite how many operas the young Vicomte has attended in his life. The twinkling of the chandelier lights overhead makes it almost a little easier to forget the death of Elaine Winter. Raoul much prefers it this way, though even now, lingering in the back of his thoughts, is the disease of whether or not Erik played a role in that death. Though the Countess was alive and left alone last night, as he witnessed with his own eyes, Raoul knows that if Erik wished to follow her undetected, he would do so without hesitation, or the slightest effort.

The Phantom is quiet until they take their seats in one of the red velvet boxes. The opening of the performance is grand and startling, but in truth Raoul is hardly focusing on the events that play out on the stage below them.

"The Italians," Erik whispers beside him, and when Raoul leans in he finds that the Phantom has already moved in quite close. His breath is warm and sweet against Raoul's ear, and sends a delightful chill up his arms and down his back. "The Italians take their passion and their operas to a higher level than the French," he says, and Raoul nods quietly beside him, content to listen. Erik's fingers brush his shoulder, and he gestures to the main character- a man with his back turned on a beautifully dressed woman. "The French stop at love, the Italians stop at nothing-there is power in this music. Not sympathy, or empathy, or nearsighted declarations of love-this man is refusing to be taken by her, refusing to blindly worship her for beauty, and the love she offers. Deep within him he sees her for what she is."

Raoul finds himself perched forward, eyes wide and lips parted is awe. The man is not even singing-there is only an instrumental story here, in this moment, and while the audience wave their fans and respectfully submit their attention, Erik has read it thoroughly. He understands.

"You love this," Raoul murmurs back, glancing over at the quiet, dignified thrill that comes over the exposed side of the Phantom's face. "No other love, no woman, no hope of romance will ever replace this for you, will it? This is what you live for, this alone." Raoul smiles. "It is amazing."

"It is," Erik breathes, unbridled passion naked in the eyes of this man. "To tell a story, Vicomte, to relay the deepest feeling in a man's soul in a language only I know, and yet every soul may understand is my passion. It cannot be replaced."

Raoul has known this to be true. He knows that not even the moments they shared in the darkness of the Paris underground could come close to replacing Erik's love for all of this, and yet it does nothing to bring him down. He is content. Raoul can see, now, what Erik is like when he is truly happy, and it brings him joy. It is a good feeling, and though it takes him a moment to realize that Erik has still not gone all the way back to his seat, and his knee is still gently bumping his own, Raoul decides that contentment is perhaps more than he hoped to ever achieve in his time with Erik.

He remains content, especially after the event, as they walk side by side down a dark, empty street still slick and shining with the moonlight reflecting in the puddles. They continue to talk civilly, though Erik does most of the talking. After some time the conversation dwindles into silence, and Erik takes a moment to pause. He falls out of step with Raoul, and hangs behind a moment as the Vicomte turns to regard him quietly.

"I've been searching," Erik says, after a moment, and he keeps somewhat of a distance between himself and Raoul, eyes uncertain and the beginning of a frown coming upon his face. Raoul mirrors his expression. "…fruitlessly… for a way to…" Erik takes another step back, almost as if he is expecting the need to take flight to arise. "…thank you, Vicomte. For all of this. For giving me my life back. My passion."

Raoul finds he is staring at Erik, and shakes his head, once, to clear the blur of surrealism he has just surrounded himself in. The Vicomte cracks a smile, and even goes as far to laugh. He extends a hand, and gestures for Erik to continue walking beside him. The Phantom falls silently, and gracefully, in step with his patron.

"Don't thank me," Raoul told him. "I only started this tour to get back at you. I think I rationalized that somehow, if I brought you out in the open, I could enact some kind of revenge. I never expected we would come this far." He gives Erik a sidelong glance, just to be certain he has not offended the other man in someway, and all that is written on Erik's face is a quiet smile.

"We are a pair, you and I," Erik says quietly, and from then on the conversation ends. It seems words would be wasted in these last steps back to the villa.


	48. 48

**Author's note: **Again, warnings ahead. I'm nearing my 50th chapter and I'm wondering, as I'm sure you all are, when this is going to end. I never intended it to be this long-well, I did, but …I don't know. Jackal was supposed to be 13 drabbles where Erik kicks it (nothing vague, you'd know he bit the big one). )

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**48**

Outside Raoul's window the sky is wracked with storms: a black night with streaks of darkened green and grey clouds. The stars have departed, and the moon is dead. The Vicomte has found yet another sleepless night, and his body rests uneasily about the mattress. Fear has stricken him, and tightens his chest and wrenches his eyes shut. It is not the raging storm outside that brings this upon him, but Erik, who has come to lay beside him without warning or words.

He feels arms envelope him, arms lean and lithe, and yet caging a dangerous strength yet to be seen. Raoul is in a cage of his own in these arms, and he will not open his eyes. He will hardly breathe, he cannot breathe without conjuring up a thousand and one memories of his time in that bed, chained down as he was in the lake. A hole in the world, that hole in Earth that had become his home and the Hell that haunted his nightmares.

"I still frighten you," Erik whispers, hollow and sorrowful in the darkness, and the arms around him tighten like a noose. Raoul is reminded of the dream he cannot forget, and a part of him struggles to the surface, grasping for strength, for that one swallow of air that will save him.

It will not come. Raoul still cannot find courage, and he is still buried in fear. Perhaps it is just the night that takes him back to these childish fears. There is no other reason for this madness, no other reason why in the day he can stand up to Erik as an equal, and when the sun has gone down, he can only tremble in a corner.

"I know you still fear me…" the voice is just behind his ear, and Erik's lips move gently on his hair. "I left you as the world left me… alone in this nightmare. Beneath the Earth, buried alive." Erik falters, and chokes on his words. The voice deepens with grief, but does not crack. "Only you never deserved it… I deserve it. All she did was love you and so I punished you for it. I hated you for it. You never deserved the torment I ruined you with, as I was ruined. Never forgive me. Hate me, and never forgive me."

Raoul is shaking. He is wondering if perhaps he ever did truly forgive Erik. He wonders if he began to, and continued to pursue the other man because he was looking for something. Perhaps he was looking for change, a single moment where Erik admitted his wrong doing, and now that it has come, and Raoul is still paralyzed in fear, irrational, and frozen in memory, he does not know if it is enough. If it will ever be enough.

Erik continues to whisper to him, in the dark, and the arms slowly begin to ease into more of a tender hold than a desperate grip. When there are no more words for Erik, Raoul begins to drift off himself. His sleep is dreamless.


	49. 49

**Author's note: **This one's a little longer. Fuck-age on the way. Bumpy sort of… thing I'm trying to get past here. Like I said, this is one long fanfic, and it feels like I'm about to turn the big "5 0" and a mid-life crises is about to hit. Does that make sense? Not unlike that in life where a person hits 50 and says, "what have I done with my life", I have hit the 50th chapter and thought to myself "perhaps my story was too big for its britches!"

Damn these ideas, how did they escape?

Thanks for your words of encouragement and construction, btw. )

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**49**

Hours have passed, and to Raoul it feels as if he only blinked a moment ago. He has slept hard, and does not immediately rise when he comes to the world around him. Erik is still beside him. There is no hot, wet blood about them in this darkness, soaking the sheets beneath a cold body. Erik is warm at his side, and from the soft rhythm of his breath, Raoul discerns that he is very much alive.

There is no blood, and the wee hours of morning have turned the black night into the blue, yellowing moments just before dawn. He turns ever so slightly on the blankets, and can see Erik is sound asleep now. His mask has been discarded, and yet the unmarred side of his face is what is buried in the pillow. Only the horrible twists and monstrous qualities are laid bare, and yet Raoul still can find himself unafraid. So many times Erik has given him these odd moments of tenderness, crawled beside him and confessed all—even if they are made only in the form of a downcast stare, or averted, tragic eyes.

There are faint lines on the salmon-tinted flesh beneath Erik's eye, reminiscent of tear streaks. This man carries with him the burden of all his guilty knowledge—perhaps last night it all came to be too much, even for the Phantom of the Opera.

He begged not to be forgiven, and Raoul cannot determine, even within himself, whether or not he has forgiven the other man. It took sometime to admit love. It took sometime to suppress shame for himself. It took sometime to learn not to fear the darkness Erik abandoned him in, and in all of that lonesome stretch of time, Raoul has come to find forgiveness in his heart. He has come to know that Erik was as much the captive as he was the captor, and he freed Raoul once before. Raoul has been trying to return the freedom ever since.

The fog outside begins to dissipate with the rise of the morning glow, and the light approaches to lift the shadows from Erik's face. Raoul leans up against his own pillow, and gently presses his lips to Erik's forehead, soft and quiet. Erik does not stir, and Raoul becomes a little bolder. He brings the kiss to the curve of Erik's cheekbone, and then the corner of the others mouth. Erik stirs, and murmurs something inaudible, and when the heavy lids crack Raoul is met with a blank, content stare from the passive eyes, still dark with sleep. Erik almost smiles.

His senses quickly return.

For a moment he was loved, and he was handsome, and he was happy. The moment has passed, and Erik is a monster again.

"What are you doing?" it is a growl that comes off more as a croak, and the sorrow has departed the hawkish features. Raoul sits up, and pulls away almost defensively, and prepares to remind Erik whose bed he is in, but the other man has beaten him to the quarrel. "What is it you think you want, Vicomte?! You want this, still?"

Raoul feels cornered, as Erik joins him to rise, coming to lean against the headboard. "You-" he stammers, face heating up in anger, and certain mortification. "You came to me—"

"And you took in nothing I said last night, boy," Erik snaps, viciously. "I told you to hate me, as I know you should! You mustn't forgive me Raoul, have I not made that clear?"

"I want to," is Raoul's response; instant, certain, and yet shaky. "I have."

There is a long stretch of silence between the two men. Erik's face seems to fall, bewildered, still angry. His head drops between the peaks of his bare shoulders, and his voice is but a resigned whisper.

"Do you think you still want me?" Raoul cannot find humiliation in this uncomfortable moment. He is trying to decide why Erik has ceased his shouting, and aggression. "You cannot remember how it hurt you, that is why you want me." Erik flicks his eyes up to the Vicomte. They are empty, inviting no challenge and demanding obedience. "Or can't you remember the pain, Vicomte –that this… shared deviance brought upon us both? Can't you remember?"

"I do remember," Raoul persists. "It is all I have left of that time, or place."

Erik keeps silent, and the stern, unchanging eyes move over the younger man. From his face, to his neck, to the slope of his shoulder into the collar bone, and like a child Erik folds his body down into Raoul's. He stiffly leans into him, with his cheek against the other's shoulder. Raoul balks, somewhat unsure of what to do exactly—he can only wonder when Erik's mood will change again, but for now it seems Erik has resigned. His body is hard, and uncertain in the closeness of the boy's touch. Raoul feels the intake of a silent, deep breath, and so he brings his arms around Erik's shoulders.

He cannot find motive in Erik's actions. Perhaps he simply seeks the comfort of touch, and has sacrificed the cruel and angry visage for a moment of its peace. Perhaps he has given up the fight, at last.


	50. 50

**50**

It is not at all strange to the housekeepers that the composer's room is empty, and the patron's door is locked, with the inaudible murmur of voices coming from within. It is, after all, the start of a new day and there are many things the two bachelors have to discuss. It is not the place of a maid to wonder such things, and so the maid lightly raps her knuckles against the Vicomte's door. She listens very carefully as the voices come to a stop, and the floors groan when someone crosses it.

The door cracks, not at all suspiciously, and the handsome tired face of the Vicomte de Chagny appears. It is clear he has not been sleeping, and long dark circles spread from his lower lashes to down near his cheekbones.

"Oh—yes, mamselle?" he steps aside a little, and the door falls naturally with him. There is an outline of a body in the dim background: it is the composer, seated in a chair with his face toward the eastern window.

"M. le Vicomte, there is a very persistent man here to see you. I told him you were still sleeping, but he insisted it was a matter of life and death," she says quietly, and her fingers curl around the tray of hot tea and biscuits she holds between herself and the door. "And I thought perhaps you might want something before—" The maid does not even hear herself scream before the silver tray clatters loudly to the floor, and hot water lashes down the front of her apron, and down around her skirts. She covers her mouth and throws her back to the wall behind her, screaming again at the hideous eyes that have locked with hers.

Erik does not even turn away. He seems annoyed—he has received this reaction before, and does not care for it enough to hide himself from the poor girl. He turns his head even more, only for a moment to truly stare her down, and the irritation seems to fade into a hateful amusement. She does not even see him turn away before Raoul scrambles to catch her. The composer only comes to his feet and leaves his seat by the window quietly, and without contest.

"Please, mamselle, it is flesh! Only flesh---"

The maid feels the Vicomte follow her to crouch on the ground, and gentle fingers pry her hands from her eyes. Through tears—mostly of mortification—she can see his kind, handsome face, and she shakes her head hard.

"I apologize, monsieur, I am so sorry, I didn't mean anything by it, I…" she stammers, and sniffles hard, but he only shushes her gently, and puts a finger to the bow of his lips.

"Did you hurt yourself?" he asks, and the maid shakes her head again. "Good… now, if you are quite all right, would you make us another pot of tea? I will deal with my visitor." The Vicomte stands and pulls her to her feet. She gingerly bends at the waist and begins to pick up her mess, fingering the bits of broken glass. The Vicomte has gone to confront the man at the door. The maid knows it is not her place, but she did not much like the look of the man. Seedy, thin lips, ragged chin and icy blue eyes---she wonders what would bring a man like that to a Vicomte's door. He claimed it was a matter of the utmost importance, and yet his tone had held no urgency. Almost a note of contentment, and distant satisfaction.

When she brings the new tea tray into the Vicomte's room, the composer has returned to stand at the window again. He is looking out, but not into the streets below. It is as if he is waiting for something to change outside his window.

"Your tea, monsieur," she is very quiet when she speaks to him, and the composer will not turn around. He is wearing a long black dressing gown, and it hands off his broad shoulders like a coat on a skeleton. There is a single, silent incline of the dark head.

"Thank you," he murmurs, and makes no mention of the previous incident at the door. It is as if it never happened.

Raoul enters wearily, and catches both their attention. Erik finally turns round with his hands folded behind his back, and the maid realizes she has been holding her breath. He is the portrait of a perfect gentleman, with the face of an unholy monster. "A friend of yours?" he asks, with a detached interest, and Raoul shakes his head.

"Not quite," is his breathy reply, and he glances over at the maid. "Thank you, mamselle. Would you please excuse us?"

"Of course, M. le Vicomte," she scurries out of the room, and does not linger in earshot for long. What she does not hear, or see, is the grave conversation between the two men. It is short, and the words are hardly spoken above a low, resigned whisper. Raoul comes to sit in one of the red velvet chairs beside the bed, and after a moment he lets his head fall into his hands. Pale hair spills between thin, splayed fingers.

"We have to keep running," he finally concludes, and his voice is muffled in his palms. "The man is the square has followed us back here. He is a detective, Erik." The boy has never looked so old as he does now, and props his chin on his knuckles, exhaling softly. "Will this ever come to an end?"

Erik shifts his rigid stance at the window, and the gold light dances on his stoic expression as he slowly approaches Raoul. He stands just over him, arms still folded behind his back, and speaks softly. "You are beginning to see," he murmurs. "The time you have wasted trying to bring me back from death. I am nothing, Vicomte. I am a shadow behind a mask." Raoul's head hangs between his shoulders and he does not fight Erik on the notion. The air between them is heavy, and after a moment Erik uncomfortably moves his hand to rest on the boy's back.

There is not much else to say, or do, and so the Phantom does not speak. Instead he retires to his own room, and wonders if he should flee to Austria. He wonders if the boy would follow him there. He wonders when the boy will finally decide it has come to an end.


End file.
